Evaluation of iron deficiency in young women in relation to oral contraceptive use

Background: The purpose of this study was to identify the optimal measures for diagnosing iron deficiency (ID) in oral contraceptive (OC) users and nonusers, and to estimate ID frequency in relation to OC use. Study Design: Conventional biomarkers of iron status - serum ferritin, iron, transferrin (Tf) and transferrin saturation (TfS) - were compared with serum soluble Tf receptor (sTfR) and the sTfR/log ferritin ratio (sTfR-F index). Two hundred two healthy menstruating white Italian women (aged 24±4.8 years) were analyzed. Serum ferritin concentrations 330 mg/dL. No other iron status measure was affected by OC. Of the markers for ID adjunctive to ferritin, an elevated sTfR-F index ≥1.5 showed the best performance. Specifically in OC users, the elevated sTfR-F index had better sensitivity (81.0% vs. 33.3%), specificity (94.7% vs. 92.1%), efficiency (89.8% vs. 71.2%), positive predictive value (89.5% vs. 70.0%) and negative predictive value (90.0% vs. 71.1%) than a TfS