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P Pootrakul, B Josephson, HA Huebers and CA Finch
Department of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand.
In 33 patients with thalassemia and idiopathic hemochromatosis, plasma
ferritin protein levels ranged from 36 to 5,850 micrograms/L. The iron
content of this ferritin as determined by immunoprecipitation ranged from
undetectable amounts to 507 micrograms/L. The mean iron content of ferritin
protein in those and other subjects with plasma ferritin concentrations of
over 1,000 was 6.8% +/- 2.7%. Plasma transferrin was usually saturated with
iron in patients with measurable ferritin iron, but exceptions occurred. In
studies using electrophoretic separation, it was shown that some ferritin
iron moved to transferrin during in vitro incubation, whereas exchange in
the opposite direction was extremely limited. Because some plasma ferritin
iron was measured by the standard colorimetric plasma iron determination,
these observations (a) indicate that plasma ferritin contains a significant
amount of iron (b) indicate that a significant proportion of nontransferrin
iron in individuals with nontransferrin iron as detected by standard plasma
iron and total iron-binding capacity measurements is due to the presence of
ferritin, and (c) suggest that large amounts of ferritin iron may affect
the saturation of plasma transferrin.
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| Copyright © 1988 by American Society of Hematology Online ISSN: 1528-0020 | |||||||||
