The extent of iron deficiency anaemia among pregnant women and its intervention with rodoxin, an oral iron preparation

Iron-deficiency, acknowledged to be a world-wide problem affects adversely, particularly, pregnant women, so various attempts are being made to reduce or eliminate this nutritional problem. In this work, one way of control, which is pharmacological intervention involving iron supplementation is used. This study involved 194 pregnant women of 24 or less weeks of gestation age between 17 and 35 years who were confirmed to be anaemic based on the baseline cut-off points of some haematological and biochemical parameters. These gestating anaemic women, recruited over a one and a half-year period starting from October 2000 to April 2002 were monitored for the envisaged effect of iron supplementation — Rodoxin (test drug) and Ferrous sulphate (control drug), for at least three months. The baseline levels of indices like haemoglobin body weight, serum iron, unsaturated iron binding capacity (UIBC), soluble transferring receptors (sTfR) and the red cell morphological features generally confirmed the iron-deficient state. The women who were given the test drug had mean weight of 57.3 ± 8.2kg whilst the control had 56.3 ± 7.2kg (p= 0.185). A mean haemoglobin of 9.2 ± I .5g/dl was recorded for the test as against 9 ‘1 ± I .4g/dl for the control (p= 0.316). A mean UIBC of 63.3 ± 13.2μmol/L and 69.4 ± 9.1μmol/L were recorded for test and control respectively, (p= 0.001). The test had a mean sTfR of 61.2 ± 11.1 nmol/L whilst the control had 67.8 ± 11 .2nmol/L (p 0.001). A mean serum iron of 7.9 ± 3.0μmol/L and 7.9 ± 2.5μmol/L were recorded for the test and control respectively (p=1 .000). Furthermore, the red blood cell morphologies of the subjects gave 13.4% macrocytic, hypochromic; red blood cell but central pallour present and 84% anisocytosic, microcytic poikilocytosic central pallour and hypochromic (iron deficiency stat baseline, the results between the test and control showed no significant difference. Following the iron supplementation, there was recovery from the anaemic condition as the anaemia receded: this was reflected in the improvement of the haematological and biochemical parameters from the beginning of the intervention up to the end of the intervention period the end of the study were very significant with the test having a me weight of 62.2 ± 7.7kg and the control 59.8 ± 7.2kg (p= 0.013). The, haemoglobin for the test was 13.5 ± 0.9g/dl as against the 12.5 ± 1.0g/dl obtained by the control (p= 0.001). A mean serum iron values of 15 3.0μmol/L and 14.4 ± 3.8μmol/L representing the test and the control were recorded (p= 0.008). The test had a mean UIBC of 39.4 ± 10.μmol/L whilst the control had 46.8 ± 6.9μmol/L at the end of the intervention period. There was a significant difference between the weights of babies of the two groups. Whilst the neonates of mothers on the test drug had a mean value of 2.3 ± 1.5kg the control had 1.8 ± 1.0kg (p= 0.004). Rodoxin proved to t efficacious in the control of iron-deficiency anaemia as there were marked improvements in the levels of the measured biochemical and haematological indices of the subjects who took the drug compared to those who were put on Ferrous sulphate.

Source: KNUST