Determination of Red Cell Indices Cut-off for Identifying Iron Deficiency Anaemia among Pre-school Children with Sickle Cell Anaemia
Nigerian pre-school children have a high risk of developing iron deficiency and there is no consistent evidence that patients with sickle cell anaemia are protected from iron deficiency anaemia. The objective is to explore red cell indices cut-off values useful as surrogate for detecting iron deficiency in children with sickle cell anaemia. Ninety-seven children with sickle cell anaemia were recruited from Children Outpatient. Reference intervals were developed using the 2.5th – 97.5th, 3.0rd – 97.0th, 5 – 95th, and 10th – 90th percentile intervals for MCV and MCH. The discriminatory performance of the proposed red cell indices criterion was assessed by use of sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, likelihood ratio and predictive values. The 2.5th, 3rd, 5th, 10th, 90th, 95th, 97th, and 97.5th percentile values were: MCV (62.7, 63.6, 66.5, 69.6, 86.3, 87.7, 89.5, and 90.1fl), and MCH (19.0, 19.5, 20.8, 21.4, 28.2, 29.1, 29.5 and 29.7pg). The various calculated cut-off points for the MCV and MCH had lower sensitivity but a higher specificity for detecting iron deficiency than the standard reference values for the general population. The calculated cut-off point for the study subjects below the 10th percentiles had the best discriminatory performance. The cut-off for iron deficiency was 69.6fl for MCV and 21.4pg for MCH either use singly or in combination. In conclusion, standard reference cut-offs of MCV and MCH based on results from western individuals without sickle cell anaemia of the same age are not in agreement with the estimated values for children with sickle cell anaemia in Nigeria.