Anaemia in blood donors is not being properly investigated

BMJ 1999;318:1214 ( 1 May )

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Anaemia in blood donors is not being properly investigated

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EDITOR $---$ We agree with Hin et al that occult coeliac disease is common in cases of unexplained anaemia and that testing forcoeliac disease by looking for IgA endomysial antibodies is underused.¹We have been studying blood donor volunteers turned away by theNational Blood Authority because they are unexpectedly found tobe anaemic in routine screening before donation. The authoritycontacts the general practitioners of all women with a haemoglobinconcentration less than 11.5 g/l and all men with a value below12.5 g/l. In our initial pilot study, 7% (32) of 483 anaemic blooddonors tested positive for IgA endomysial antibody and were thereforelikely to have coeliacdisease.

After 3-6 months, we sent out questionnaires to all subjects who had been endomysial antibody positive. None of the 22 whoresponded had been considered for coeliac disease serology. Indeed,in 14 no follow up tests of any sort had been organised, and in. . . [Full text of this article]

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Coeliac disease in primary care: case finding study: Harold Hin, Graham Bird, Peter Fisher, Nick Mahy, and Derek Jewell
BMJ 1999 318: 164-167. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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