Serum ferritin. A valuable index of nutritional balance

The object of the present study was to examine how much ferritin levels could evaluate the maintenance of the nutritional balance in patients with heavy injuries (and under intestinal alimentation). For this purpose we have chosen multi- injured and burned patients. Material-Methods The sample study included a group of 66 patients. Thirty five (35) of them were multitraumatic patients and thirty one of them burned, taken care in hospitals In Athens. The duration of the study was two years. The method used for data collection was based on a specific protocol checking the effectiveness of enteral nutrition. Evaluation indexes of nutrition constituted total albumens, albumin, the absolute number of lymphocytes, TIBC and ferritin. During the study blood specimens were taken for the evaluation of the above indexes. Results The data analysis has shown: (a) significant increase in levels of total albumen for multitraumatic (P<0.001) and burned (P<0.003) patients, (b) significant increase in albumin (P<0.005) in burned patients, (c) the absolute number of lymphocytes and TIBC were normal, (d) the levels of ferritin were specially increased up to 3000 mg in all counts and in both sample groups of the study. Conclusions The significantly increased levels of ferritin, which represents a positive albumin of the acute phase, should be followed by analogous decrease of the negative albumins of the acute phase, the levels of which remained normal. Therefore, ferritin could be a reinforcing evaluation index of the nutritional equilibrium during the acute phase due to severe trauma.

Keywords: Ferritin, acute phase, infection, trauma-nutrition, immunoglobulins