Introduction/Background Anaemia was common in malignancy, and was reported to be present in 39% of cancer patients at baseline and increased to 67% for those undergoing chemotherapy. Data on the magnitude of this problem in gynaecological oncology patients were limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of iron-deficiency anaemia in patients with newly diagnosed gynaecological malignancy.

Methodology All the new case referrals of gynaecological malignancy to our center between September 2022 and March 2023 were identified using hospital database. All patients were advised to have an iron profile checked as part of the initial workup regardless of the haemoglobin level. Anaemia was defined as haemoglobin <12g/dL, and it was further classified into mild (11.0–11.9g/dL), moderate (8.0–10.9g/dL) and severe (<8.0g/dL) according to the World Health Organization classification. A transferrin saturation (TSAT) level of <20% was regarded as iron-deficiency.

Results There were 223 new case referrals during the study period. Haemoglobin level and Iron profile were available in 93 cases for analysis. Among the 93 cases, anaemia was observed in 37 patients (39.8%) - 14 patients with mild anaemia (15.1%), 16 with moderate anaemia (17.2%) and 7 (7.5%) with severe anaemia. For the 37 patients with anaemia, a low TSAT level (<20%) suggesting iron-deficiency was observed in 30 cases (81.1%). However, a low Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV) (<82fL) was only seen in 16 (53.3%) out of these 30 cases.

Conclusion Anaemia was common in patients with newly diagnosed gynaecological malignancy, and most of them were due to iron-deficiency. Screening by MCV value to triage anaemic patients for further iron study was not reliable in the setting of oncology patients, as half of the patients would have normal MCV even in the presence of iron deficiency. All gynaecological oncology patients with anaemia should have iron profile checked regardless of the MCV value.

Disclosures All authors declared no conflict of interest.