Understanding Late Life Anemia

在老年人中，贫血的发生频率随着年龄的增长而增加。与年轻人发生贫血不同，老年人贫血的原因往往不是很明显或可归因于单一原因。然而，这种在老年人中常见的贫血形式(称为不明原因贫血或UA)通常可以剖析其根本原因，包括肾功能不全、炎症、睾酮缺乏和干细胞增殖下降。骨髓发育不良(MDS)在这个年龄段中常见，但出于诊断和治疗的考虑，可以而且应该与UA区分开来。 这项研究涉及对未经选择的患者发生贫血的机制以及贫血对身体表现和生活质量的功能后果的全面评估。根据这一分析，将制定战略，以评估纠正贫血是否会导致这些(或其他)选定参数的改善。

Among the elderly, anemia occurs with increasing frequency with each advancing decade. Unlike when anemia occurs in younger adults, the cause of anemia in the elderly is oftentimes not readily apparent or attributable to a single cause. However, this commonly observed form of anemia in the elderly (termed Unexplained Anemia or UA) can generally be dissected to its root causes, which include renal insufficiency, inflammation, testosterone deficiency and stem cell proliferative decline. Myelodysplasia (MDS) occurs commonly in this age group but can and should, for both diagnostic and therapeutic considerations, be distinguished from UA. This research involves a comprehensive assessment of the mechanisms involved in the development of anemia in unselected patients and the functional consequences of anemia with regard to physical performance and quality of life. From this analysis strategies will be developed to assess whether correction of anemia will result in improvement in these (or other) selected parameters.