At which doctor can I get tested and how does he do the test? | Iron Deficiency Test

At which doctor can I get tested and how does he do the test?

Which doctor performs the test for a possible iron deficiency depends mainly on which specialist is consulted by the patient concerned. In principle, any specialist can take a suitable blood sample and send it to a medical laboratory for iron deficiency testing. In general, however, it should be assumed that the family doctor is responsible for carrying out an iron deficiency test on outpatients.

If iron deficiency is suspected, the medical test comprises several steps. Above all, a detailed doctor-patient discussion (anamnesis) can help to make the suspected diagnosis of “iron deficiency”. During this doctor-patient consultation, the symptoms that the patient notices in himself play a decisive role.

After the doctor-patient consultation, the suspected diagnosis should be confirmed and other causes for the development of these complaints should be excluded. For this reason, the attending physician should conduct an orienting physical examination. Above all, listening to the lungs and heart play a decisive role in this.

As soon as other causes for the occurrence of the complaints can be excluded, a blood test is usually performed. In the classic iron deficiency test, this is usually done by drawing venous blood. The blood samples must be stored in such a way that the blood values relevant for the test are not affected until they are transported to the laboratory.

The classic iron deficiency test in the laboratory comprises the examination of three important parameters. In addition to the number of red blood cells (erythrocytes), the haemoglobin concentration and the so-called haematocrit in a patient with iron deficiency are also found to be significantly reduced. The drop in red blood cells examined in the iron deficiency test can be explained by the fact that iron is used in the organism primarily for the formation of erythrocytes.

For this reason, a pronounced iron deficiency also leads to a drop in hemoglobin concentration (red blood pigment of the erythrocytes). Furthermore, the so-called transferrin in the blood should be determined in the course of the iron deficiency test. This is a transport protein formed in the liver, which is responsible for the transport of iron in the blood plasma. In cases of pronounced iron deficiency, this transport protein is typically elevated without bound iron.