TABLE 6.

Comparison of indicators of iron status¹

Indicator	Measurement	Pros	Cons
Hemoglobin	Anemia	Commonly available	Low specificity and sensitivity
		Low complexity	Certain factors (e.g., elevation, age, ethnicity) may complicate interpretation
Ferritin	Size of iron stores	Commonly available	Confounded by inflammation
Transferrin saturation	Iron-deficient erythropoiesis	Commonly available	Diurnal and prandial variation
Erythrocyte protoporphyrin	Iron-deficient erythropoiesis	—	Reliability of field instrumentation
sTfR	Iron-deficient erythropoiesis	Less affected by inflammation	Limited availability
			Assay differences
Ratio of sTfR-to-ferritin (derived by using various calculations)	Reflection of range of status	Less affected by inflammation	Requires 2 measurements
Hepcidin	Determinant of iron needs and utilization	Relatively sensitive	Experimental and under development
		Possibly less affected by inflammation

¹Christine Pfeiffer, CDC, personal communication as contribution to the compilation of this table, 2017. sTfR, soluble transferrin receptor.