Background: Iron deficiency, as the most common nutritional deficiency, often occurs in the pediatric age group due to rapid growth and low dietary iron content.
Objectives: The present study aimed to assess the relationship between microcytic hypochromic anemia and blood lead level below the standard acceptable upper range in children aged between one and ten years.
Methods: In this study, 27 cases, who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were assigned to group A, as hypochromic microcytic anemia with iron deficiency. Another 18 hypochromic microcytic anemia cases with normal ferritin levels were assigned to group B. Besides, 20 healthy children were chosen as the control group. All the statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS statistical software. P values of < 0.05 were considered to be statistically significant.
Results: The children in group A showed significant correlations between lead levels and hemoglobin (-0.770; P values = 0.001), mean corpuscular volume (MCV) (-0.679; P values = 0.001), and ferritin (-0.509; P values < 0.001). In group B, only a significant correlation was observed between lead levels and ferritin (-0.637; P values = 0.001). In the control group, a significant correlation was found between lead levels and MCV (-0.483; P values = 0.031) and ferritin (-0.562; P values = 0.010). Multiple comparisons test showed significant mean differences (± SD) between the control group and groups A (1.26 ± 0.28; P values = 0.001) and B (1.78 ± 0.31; Pvalues = 0.001) regarding the lead levels, but no significant difference was seen between groups A and B in this regard.
Conclusions: Our study results imply that there is no secure threshold for blood lead level at which, lead begins to cause interruption with hematologic parameters in young children.