Alopecia and Iron Deficiency: An Interventional Pilot Study in Primary Care to Improve the Request of Ferritin

The study investigated the relationship between alopecia and iron deficiency in primary care patients, focusing on the request and measurement of hemoglobin and ferritin levels. It involved retrospective and prospective studies with 343 and 1032 laboratory requests, respectively. Hemoglobin was requested for nearly all patients, while ferritin was requested for 88%. The study found that 5% of patients had anemia and 25% had iron deficiency. An intervention was implemented to automatically register and measure ferritin when not requested, identifying iron deficiency in 27.9% of women with alopecia. This intervention, costing 10.6€, potentially helped prevent the adverse effects of iron deficiency on hair loss. The study highlighted that the majority of patients were young females.