Intravenous vs. oral iron supplementation during autologous blood donation

Prior to hip replacement surgery, 197 patients (123 women, 74 men, age 18-86 years) donated up to 4 units of blood once weekly if their hemoglobin concentrations exceeded 11.5 g/dl. They received an oral (200 mg iron sulfate daily) or intravenous (200 mg iron saccharate or 125 mg iron gluconate in 500 ml 0.9% NaCl weekly) iron replacement. Correlating the number of donated blood units with the form of iron substitution, no effect of i.v. iron was seen in men. Women who received i.v. iron substitution were able to donate 4 units of blood more often than with oral iron.