[Anemia of chronic disorder - pathogenesis, clinical presentation and treatment]

After iron deficiency anemia the anemia of chronic disorder is the second most frequent anemia, and in hospitalized patients and/or patients suffering from chronic disease, especially infection, cancer and autoimmune disorders it is even the most frequent anemia. Morphologically it belongs to the normochromic, normocytic, hyporegeneratoric anemias. Pathogenetically it is induced by the upregulation of hepcidin, a recently detected acute phase protein with most important regulatory function in the iron-household. As a consequence of elevated hepcidin at the same time iron absorption in the bowel as well as iron release from macrophages are reduced, resulting in sequestration of iron in the RES and therefore functional iron deficiency. The other reason is a blunted release of erythropoetin (EPO) with at the same time reduced effectiveness due to down-regulation of EPO-receptors on erythroid cells. Treatment consists first of all in the therapy of the underlying disease and possibly in the combined application of EPO and iron.