Clinical variations of serum levels of ferritin, folic acid and vitamin B12 in acute leukemia patients

Acute leukemia is one of the most common hematologic malignancies and its exact mechanism of development is unknown yet. In clinical, acute leukemia always accompany with abnormal iron balance. Ferritin, folic acid and vitamin B12 are important components of blood cells. In this study, we measured variations of serum levels of ferritin (SF), folic acid and vitamin B12 in the acute leukemia patients under different disease stages including first diagnosed stage, complete remission (CR) stage and not remission (NR) or relapse stage. It demonstrated that serum SF levels in patients at the first diagnosed stage and NR or relapse stage were significantly higher than the CR stage in acute myelocytic leukemia (AML) patients and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients (P<0.05). The serum folic acid levels in patients at the first diagnosed stage and NR or relapse stage were significantly lower than the CR stage in AML patients and ALL patients (P<0.001). Whereas, serum vitamin B12 levels in AML patients were significantly higher at the first diagnosed stage and NR or relapse stage than the CR stage (P<0.001). And it was significantly higher in ALL patients at the NR or relapse stage than at the first diagnosed stage and CR stage (P<0.05). There are obvious variations of serum levels of SF, folic acid and vitamin B12 in acute leukemia patients under different stages. Increased serum levels of SF and vitamin B12 and decreased levels of folic acid may correlate to the active degree of acute leukemia as well as tumor load.