THE VALUE OF LIVER AND IRON IN THE TREATMENT OF SECONDARY ANEMIA

During the past year we have been interested in the response of various secondary anemias to treatment with liver and iron. We were particularly attracted to this form of therapy through the experimental work of Robscheit-Robbins and Whipple.¹ They have demonstrated quite clearly that the administration of liver and iron to dogs with chronic posthemorrhagic anemia is much more effective in producing hemoglobin regeneration than either substance given alone. Furthermore, while some of the secondary anemias in man show only moderate improvement following liver feeding, as demonstrated by Minot, Murphy and Stetson,² Middleton,³ and Murphy and Powers,⁴ it was of considerable importance to determine whether the effect of liver could be supplemented by the addition of iron.

In this paper, we present the results of a study of thirty-seven patients with secondary anemia due to various causes. Nine recovered spontaneously; eight recovered following blood transfusion; ten