A simple, rapid and improved colorimetric assay for nontransferrin thalassemia patients bound iron estimation inthalassemia patients

Abstract

Non transferrin bound iron refers to the many kinds of plasma iron that are not carried by the plasma
protein transferrin. Due to its redox activity, as shown by Haiber weiss and Fenton chemistry, it has
been hypothesized that such iron compounds are poisonous. Non transferrin bound iron has been
intensively investigated in patients suffering from iron overload disorders including
hemochromatosis and thalassemia getting blood transfusion therapy owing to noticeable increased
transferrin saturation. A number of scholars have proposed studying NTBI to evaluate the
effectiveness of chelators in treating iron overload. Different researchers have proposed different
ways for measuring the amount of iron that is not bound to transferrin, such as chromatography,
fluorimetry, atomic absorption spectroscopy, spectrophotometry, etc. However, none of them have
yet achieved widespread acceptance or been declared the gold standard because of their complicated
methods, need for expensive specialist equipment, and questionable accuracy. To make the
bathophenanthroline based colorimetric approach for non transferrin bound iron quantification
more accessible in low-capacity labs without sacrificing accuracy, we have experimented with a
number of variants. Patients with beta thalassemia and healthy controls were tested using the NTBI
procedure that yielded the best stable findings. We discovered that the background noise was much
reduced and the most consistent findings were produced by high-speed centrifugation with interstitial
sample pre-incubation. In the beta thalassemia patient group, we found a considerably greater mean
value for non-transferrin bound iron compared to the corresponding mean value in the control group.
Hemochromatosis, beta thalassemia, and bathophenanthroline are all diseases associated with an
excess of iron that isn't bound to transferrin.