The iron status of Black subjects with amoebiasis

Abstract

Hepatic iron concentrations were measured in 60 Black patients who had died of amoebiasis. There were 18 infants and young children, 30 adult males and 12 adult females. The mean hepatic iron concentration in infants was normal (0,11% dry weight), while those in adult males and females were significantly raised (0,64% and 0,30% dry weight respectively). The figures for adults are somewhat higher than those previously found in Black subjects, suggesting that iron overload is more common in patients with amoebiasis than in the general population. The relevance of these findings to the pathogenesis of amoebiasis is not clear but the relationship may well not be a direct one, since hepatic iron stores were no larger in patients with liver abscesses than in subjects without.