An association of febrile seizures with iron deficiency anemia: A case control study in children (6 to 36 months)

Objective: the objective of this study was to establish the association between febrile seizures and iron deficiency anemia in children of 6 to 36 months. study design: case control study. place of study: this study was conducted in the department of pediatrics,shaikh zayed hospital,lahore. duration of study: six months from 1st june 2012 to 1st december 2012. subjects and methods: 150 cases (75 in each group,cases and controls) fulfilling the inclusion criteria were selected for this study. their demographics like age,sex,and addresses were recorded and blood samples were collected from all the subjects in case and control groups for hemoglobin (hb),mean corpuscular volume (mcv),red blood cell distribution width (rdw),and plasma ferritin (pf) to determine the frequency of iron deficiency anemia. results: the mean age of the patients in cases group was 21.2±5.7 months and in controls group was a 19.5±6.8 months. in cases group,there were 43 (57.3%) male and 32 (42.7%) female patients and in controls group there were 39 (52%) male and 36 (48%) female patients. in cases group,the mean hemoglobin level of the patients was 10.4±1.4 mg/dl and in controls group was 11.1±1.4 mg/dl. in cases group,the mean plasma ferritin level of the patients was 13.7±4.7 ng/dl and in controls group was 15.7±4.8 ng/dl. in cases group,28 (37.3%) patients had iron deficiency anemia while in controls group 13 (17.3%) patients had iron deficiency anemia. odd ratio was found to be 2.84 that was statistically significant. conclusion: it is concluded from this study that iron deficiency anemia is more frequent in cases group as compared to controls group and there is high association between febrile seizures and iron deficiency anemia. © 2015,pakistan pediatric journal. all rights reserved.