Efficacy of oral vs. intravenous iron for the treatment of iron deficiency anemia in different conditions: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT: The present systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated the efficacy and safety of oral vs. intravenous (IV) iron therapy in managing iron deficiency anemia (IDA) across various clinical conditions. A comprehensive search was conducted in PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, Web of Science, Scopus, and ClinicalTrials.gov, yielding 31 eligible studies. IV iron demonstrated statistically significant superiority over oral iron in increasing hemoglobin levels among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), cancer-related anemia and general IDA. Specifically, pooled standardized mean differences (SMD) indicated significant improvements with IV iron for cancer-related anemia (SMD: -0.662, P=0.011), CKD (SMD: -0.492, P=0.035), IBD (SMD: -0.560, P<0.001)

SUBMITTER: Zhao C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12635910 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature