Hematological Indices in Children with Non-organic Failure to Thrive: a Case-Control Study

Background Non-organic failure to thrive (NFTT) is the&nbsp;most common cause of failure to thrive&nbsp;(FTT) which is attributed to inadequate nutrition due to economic factors or&nbsp;parental neglect. NFTT can lead to a&nbsp;vicious cycle of poor and inadequate&nbsp;eating and severity of anemia. The aim of&nbsp;this study was to determine the&nbsp;hematological indices in children with&nbsp;NFTT. Materials and Methods In a cross sectional case control study, iron&nbsp;status and blood indices of forty five aged&nbsp;6&ndash;60 months children with NFTT were evaluated and compared with 45 healthy&nbsp;control children (with matching of age and&nbsp;sex). Results In this study, the prevalence of anemia was&nbsp;48.9% in NFTT compared to 11.4% in the&nbsp;control group (p<0.001). Microcytic anemia was significantly more prevalent&nbsp;among the subjects than the controls&nbsp;(77.8% versus 27.3%; p<0. 001). The&nbsp;serum iron level was 73.2 and 62.8 mcg/dl&nbsp;for the case and control groups (P=0.29).&nbsp;The ferritin level in the study group was&nbsp;29.8 versus 35.47 ng/ml in the control&nbsp;group (p=0.227). The prevalence of iron&nbsp;deficiency anemia among children with&nbsp;mild, moderate, and severe underweight&nbsp;was 44.4%, 45.5%, and 48%, respectively.&nbsp;The highest prevalence of iron-deficiency anemia was seen between age group of 12&nbsp;and 24 months (p<0.05). Conclusion Based on the results of this study, a&nbsp;correlation between malnutrition and&nbsp;anemia was found. However, further studies are needed to assess and confirm&nbsp;the current outcomes.