Iron Deficiency and Hereditary Haemorrhagic Telangiectasia
Status:
Terminated
Trial end date:
2015-07-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Managing iron deficiency is important for more than 1 billion individuals worldwide, to avoid
blood transfusions, or excessive strain on vital organs that depend on iron-containing
haemoglobin to deliver oxygen to the tissues. Iron deficiency is a particular problem for
people with the inherited condition hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT). Their iron
deficiency and anaemia results from blood losses, especially from the nose (nosebleeds, and
they often need additional iron to replace that lost through bleeding.
Our goal is to stratify HHT patients into high/low absorbers of iron; to define what extra
iron they need to adjust for their current and likely future blood losses; and to work out
how to achieve this most safely for each individual to improve their later health.
We will test the hypothesis that informed assessment of iron intake and post absorption
cellular profiles changes the recommendations for iron intake for HHT patients.