Anemia, hematinic deficiencies, hyperhomocysteinemia, and serum gastric parietal cell antibody positivity in atrophic glossitis patients with or without microcytosis.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Microcytosis is defined as having mean corpuscular volume (MCV) < 80 fL. This study evaluated whether 79 atrophic glossitis (AG) patients with microcytosis and 985 AG patient without microcytosis had higher frequencies of anemia, hematinic deficiencies, hyperhomocysteinemia, and serum gastric parietal cell antibody (GPCA) positivity than 532 healthy control subjects.

METHODS: Complete blood count, serum iron, vitamin B12, folic acid, homocysteine, and serum GPCA levels in 79 AG patients with microcytosis, 985 AG patient without microcytosis, and 532 healthy control subjects were measured and compared.

RESULTS: We found that 69.6%, 43.0%, 5.1%, 3.8%, 11.4%, and 22.8% of 79 AG patients with microcytosis and 14.9%, 14.8%, 5.3%, 2.1%, 12.0%, and 27.0% of 985 AG patients without microcytosis were diagnosed as having blood hemoglobin, iron, vitamin B12, and folic acid deficiencies, hyperhomocysteinemia, and serum GPCA positivity, respectively. Both 79 AG patients with microcytosis and 985 AG patients without microcytosis had significantly higher frequencies of blood hemoglobin, iron, vitamin B12, and folic acid deficiencies, hyperhomocysteinemia, and serum GPCA positivity than 532 healthy control subjects (all P-values < 0.01). Moreover, 79 AG patients with microcytosis had significantly higher frequencies of blood hemoglobin and iron deficiencies than 985 AG patients without microcytosis.

CONCLUSION: There are significantly higher frequencies of anemia, serum iron, vitamin B12, and folic acid deficiencies, hyperhomocysteinemia, and serum GPCA positivity in AG patients with or without microcytosis than in healthy control subjects. AG patients with microcytosis have significantly higher frequencies of blood hemoglobin and iron deficiencies than AG patients without microcytosis.