Correcting anemia important for IBD
Anemia is also underidentified and undertreated in older patients with IBD, Ha said.
“Across the board with inflammatory bowel disease, we don’t do a great job of being aggressive and correcting anemia. That has implications for fatigue and implications with functional status and circulating volume,” she said.
In older patients, it might be that the decline in hemoglobin over time is more important to outcomes than the number itself, she said. “A hemoglobin of 8 g/dL is one thing, but if it was at 12 g/dL 6 months ago, that’s a different story.”
“For older patients, anemia is associated with a high incidence of cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, increased risks of falls and fractures, longer hospitalizations (and thus increased costs of care), increased frailty and dementia, and increased risk of mortality,” Ha said. But, she pointed out, Medicare benefits do cover intravenous iron formulations.
This article originally appeared on Medscape.com.