Pathology and treatment of anemia in the elderly

An important background characteristic of anemia in the elderly is decrease in hematopoiesis due to aging. Factors influencing hematopoiesis in the elderly include changes in the distribution of hematopoietic tissue, changes in hematopoietic stem cell density and changes in the hematopoietic inductive microenvironment. In the present study, in order to assess changes in the bone marrow with aging, the fat tissue area, uncleated cell-count and cellularity in the bone marrow, in addition to changes in the diameter of the vascular lumen which result primarily from sclerotic changes in the dorsomedial artery of the bone marrow were determined in different age groups. The results revealed that all of the aforementioned factors changed significantly with aging. We also describe on the results of assays of inflammatory cytokines (IL-1, IL-6, TNF-alpha), lactoferrin and transferrin receptors in cases of anemia of chronic disorders (ACD) which own secondary to chronic inflammatory diseases and is known to frequently afflict the elderly.