Tissue Iron and Hemochromatosis

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Abstract
THE MOST IMPORTANT diagnostic method employed in the detection of hemochromatosis is the search for increased stainable tissue iron, chiefly in the liver, bone marrow, and skin—the three most accessible organs. Marrow iron is not usually increased in idiopathic hemochromatosis 1,2 and stainable iron is present in the skin in only one half of pathologically advanced cases.3 Particular attention has been given to the use of liver biopsy, and stainable hepatic iron has often been assumed to be an abnormal finding.4-7 These studies were carried out in different necropsy populations to investigate the occurrence and the quantities of iron in the liver and other organs and to determine whether in systematic autopsy studies early or latent cases of idiopathic hemochromatosis might be found that would otherwise not be detected because they lacked sufficient clinical manifestations. Materials and Methods A total of 1,067 unselected autopsies and 86 diagnostic liver

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