Association between the blood manganese (Mn) and hemoglobin in patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis

Manganese (Mn) and iron metabolism are closely related. Iron metabolism disorders often lead to anemia in patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (MHD). Here, we aimed to investigate the relationship between blood Mn and hemoglobin (Hb) in patients undergoing MHD.

Patients undergoing MHD in September 2019 were included in a cross-sectional study. Clinical and demographic data and blood samples were collected before hemodialysis sessions, and blood levels of Mn were measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Both multivariable linear and binary logistic regression analyses were performed to study the relationship between the blood Mn and Hb.

A total of 144 patients undergoing MHD were enrolled in the study. The patients had a mean age of 64.33 ± 13.39 years, median vintage of 33.50 (16.25-57.50) months. Among them, 66 were females (45.8%). The median blood Mn level was 13.55 µg/L (IQR:9.92-17.48). Ninety-nine patients were anemic (68.8%). The mean Hb level was 99.83 ± 19.68 g/L. The patient group with high blood Mn had a high proportion of females, and these patients had high levels of RBC, hemoglobin, Hct, UIBC, serum TCHOL, and serum LDL, yet short dialysis vintage, low prevalence of anemia, low levels of serum ferritin, serum iron, and TSAT. Following adjustment for confounding factors, we found that low blood Mn level was independently associated with lower Hb level and anemia in patients undergoing MHD by multivariate linear and multivariate binary logistic regression, respectively, in different models.

Whilst our study showed that high levels of blood Mn were independently associated with high hemoglobin in patients undergoing MHD, further multicenter studies with large sample sizes are still required.