Health-related quality of life in patients with iron deficiency anemia: impact of treatment with intravenous iron

Abstract

Most physicians appear to be aware of the health consequences of advanced anemia, especially in the acute setting, frequently responding with a not inconsequential therapeutic default of transfusion. In contrast, the profound impact that chronic anemia, of any degree, may have on a patient’s performance is underappreciated. The focus of this review is to 1) delineate the consistent and broad impact of anemia on patient quality of life as documented by multiple well-validated patient-reported outcome instruments and 2) demonstrate the essential normalization of the debilitation as assessed by these instruments following the administration of intravenous iron.

Keywords:

• anemia
• health-related quality of life
• intravenous iron
• iron deficiency anemia

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Drs David Henry and Robert Kaper for their review of the manuscript and insightful suggestions, as well as Dr Naomi Dahl for the editorial support. Disha Patel, PhD, of in Science Communications, Springer Healthcare (New York, NY, USA) provided editorial support, which was funded by AMAG Pharmaceuticals.

Disclosure

WES is an employee of AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and holds equity in the company. MA has received research funding for data management only from AMAG Pharmaceuticals and Pharmacosmos and has consulted for Allergan, AMAG Pharmaceuticals, American Regent/Luitpold, and Pharmacosmos. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.