Anemia and its clinical consequences in patients with chronic diseases

Abstract

Anemia is not considered a serious clinical condition by the vast majority of physicians. Instead, it is thought to be either an insignificant finding in an otherwise healthy patient or a comorbidity that compounds the complexity of managing a patient with ≥1 chronic disease. Although the risks and benefits of treatment for nonnutritionally based anemia have been reasonably well documented, the magnitude of risk associated with untreated anemia remains largely unknown.

The contribution of anemia to poor outcomes in chronically ill patients has been documented in many diseases to various degrees.¹ In patients with chronic kidney disease, for example, the impact of anemia on morbidity, mortality, and quality of life (QOL) has been extensively examined; numerous publications describing this patient population are available. For other chronic diseases, much less information has been published, and the available publications have not been collated and summarized. Therefore, this supplement to The American Journal of Medicine focuses on 6 areas in which there is a plausible expectation that anemia is likely to exist and to influence clinical outcomes independently, despite the previous lack of research data systematically gathered, evaluated, and synthesized.