Journal of dental sciences
Anemia, hematinic deficiencies, hyperhomocysteinemia, and serum gastric parietal cell antibody positivity in recurrent aphthous stomatitis patients with iron deficiency
By Wang YP, Wu YH, Lee YP and 3 others.
Abstract
Background/purpose
Our previous study found that 101 of 430 recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) patients have iron deficiency (ID). This study assessed whether all RAS patients with ID (so-called ID/RAS patients) had iron deficiency anemia (IDA) and evaluated whether the ID/RAS patients had significantly higher frequencies of anemia, hematinic deficiencies, hyperhomocysteinemia, and serum gastric parietal cell antibody (GPCA) positivity than healthy control subjects.
Materials and methods
The blood hemoglobin (Hb) and serum iron, vitamin B12, folic acid, homocysteine, and GPCA levels in 101 ID/RAS patients and 430 healthy control subjects were measured and compared.
Results
We found that 101 ID/RAS patients had significantly lower mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean blood Hb and serum iron and folic acid levels than 430 healthy control subjects (all P-values <0.05). Moreover, 101 ID/RAS patients had significantly higher frequencies of microcytosis (30.7%), blood Hb (52.5%) and serum vitamin B12 (5.9%), and folic acid (5.0%) deficiencies, hyperhomocysteinemia (9.9%), and serum GPCA positivity (10.9%) than 430 healthy control subjects (all P-values <0.001). Furthermore, of 53 anemic ID/RAS patients, 1 (1.9%) had macrocytic anemia other than pernicious anemia, 25 (47.2%) had normocytic anemia, and 27 (50.9%) had IDA.