Current medical research and opinion
-
Objective: To explore whether newly diagnosed iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is associated with subsequent systemic autoimmune disease onset. Methods: The study identified 22,440 patients who received a diagnosis of IDA between 2000 and 2012 from a random sample of 1 million people from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database. The patients with IDA were randomly matched with 89,528 patients with no IDA by age, gender, and index year. ⋯ The autoimmune disease was significantly more likely to occur within 2 years after a new diagnosis of IDA. Conclusions: IDA significantly increases autoimmune disease risk, particularly in female patients and patients with certain comorbidities. Clinicians should conduct further clinical evaluations and laboratory tests of autoimmune disease in patients with IDA.