. 2004 May 13;8(5):356–362. doi: 10.1186/cc2862

Table 1.

Studies describing iron metabolism in intensive care unit (ICU) patients

Study	Time of measurement	Iron (μmol/l)	Ferritin (μg/l)	Transferrin saturation (%)	Transferrin (g/l)
Reference value with inflammation [8,10]		< 9	30–200	10–20	< 3
Surgical ICU patients [18]	Week 1	4.1	652	12.8	1.7
	Week 2	4.1	1234	11.9	1.5
	Week 3	4.6	1536	13.4	1.4
	Week 4	6.9	1367	18.7	1.4
Medical ICU patients ≥ 4 days [3]	Days 1–2	4.8^a	471^a,b	16^a	1.4^a,c
	Days 6–8	6.0^a	767^a,b	15^a	1.3^a,c
	Days 13–15	6.5^a	795^a,b	22^a	1.3^a,c
	Days 20–25	8.1^a	774^a,b	24^a	1.4^a,c
	Days 31–40	7.8^a	723^a,b	20^a	1.5^a,c
Medical and surgical ICU patients [19]	Days 2–3	4.9^d	727^b	16	Not reported
General ICU patients [21]
Functional iron deficiency	Day 1	Not reported	342	Not reported	Not reported
No functional iron deficiency	Day 1	Not reported	292	Not reported	Not reported
Multiple mechanical trauma patients [20]	Day 1	9.5	832	Not reported	1.7^c
	Day 2	3.9	547	Not reported	1.7^c
	Day 4	3.4	466	Not reported	1.5^c
	Day 6	4.0	530	Not reported	1.6^c
	Day 9	5.0	842	Not reported	1.6^c

Data presented as mean values, except ^amedian values. ^bFerritin (ng/ml or μg/ml). ^cTransferrin (mg/dl) multiplied by 0.01 to convert to transferrin (g/l). ^dIron (μg/dl) multiplied by 0.1791 to convert to iron (μmol/l).