Iron deficiency and infection risk in Danish blood donors

Abstract

Background: We aimed to investigate if iron deficiency was associated with infection susceptibility in a large cohort of healthy individuals.

Study design and methods: The Danish Blood Donor Study is a national ongoing prospective study of blood donors. We included 94,628 donors with 338,290 ferritin measurements from March 2010 to October 2022. We performed sex-stratified multivariable Cox regression to estimate the risk of infection for iron-deficient donors compared with iron-replete donors. Infection was defined as either a filled prescription of antibiotics registered in the Danish National Prescription Registry (NPR), or a hospital contact with infection registered in the Danish National Patient Registry (DNPR).

Results: Iron deficiency was associated with an overall increased risk of infection (defined as prescriptions of antibiotics) for women (hazard ratio [HR] 1.08, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.02-1.15). Subgroup analyses showed an increased risk of respiratory tract infections (HR 1.16, 95% CI 1.05-1.28) and urinary tract infections (HR 1.16, 95% CI 1.04-1.29). Iron deficiency was not associated with overall risk of infection for men (HR 1.02, 95% CI 0.82-1.28). For both men and women, no association was found between iron deficiency and hospital contacts for infections.

Conclusion: Iron deficiency was associated with an increased risk of infection in female blood donors. However, effect sizes were small, and there was no association between iron deficiency and hospital contacts for infection. Consequently, risk of infection should not be considered an apprehension regarding blood donation. These findings support the role of iron in immune function and monitorization of iron stores in female blood donors.

Keywords: blood donors; ferritin; infection; iron deficiency.