Serum prohepcidin levels in children with solid tumors, inflammatory bowel disease and iron deficiency anemia.

BACKGROUND Prohepcidin is one of the regulators of iron metabolism. Few studies examined its relation with solid tumors (ST), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and iron deficiency anemia (IDA) in children. METHODS We measured serum prohepcidin (SP), soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR), serum ferritin (SF), serum iron (SI), transferrin saturation (TS), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in ST (n = 16), IBD (n = 15), IDA (n = 14) and controls (n = 18). RESULTS The mean SP was significantly higher in ST and IBD than in IDA and controls. SP was significantly correlated with SF in ST, IBD and ESR for IBD and CRP for ST and hemoglobin for ST. CONCLUSION Elevated SP may be a clinically important predictor of inflammation and leads to anemia by impairing iron utilization in IBD and ST. SP decreases in IDA and is correlated with TS but not with SF or sTfR.