Introduction:

repetitive blood donors can develop iron deficiency, reticulocyte hemoglobin is an effective auxiliary tool, which allows detecting early changes in the status of this element to be detected before anemia develops and microcytosis and hypochromia appear, as well as clinical symptoms.

Objective:

to determine the levels of reticulocyte hemoglobin, ferritin and erythroid parameters in repetitive blood donors, who attend the blood bank of the School of Microbiology of the University of Antioquia.

Methods:

Cross-sectional descriptive study that included 109 repetitive donors from the Blood Bank of the University of Antioquia. Ferritin, erythroid parameters, reticulocyte hemoglobin, and peripheral blood smear were evaluated. Summary measures and frequencies were calculated and the following statistical tests were used: Mann-Whitney U and Pearson or Spearman correlations, with a significance level of p<0.05.

Results:

62.4% were women, the average age was 37 year. Iron deficiency was observed in 6.4% of the total population and low reticulocyte hemoglobin in 3.70%. This presented a weak positive correlation with ferritin and a statistically significant association with gender.

Conclusions:

It is important to prevent the development of iron deficiency in repetitive blood donors, the implementation of the type VI hemogram that includes the reticulogram could help improve the criteria for selecting and monitoring donors.

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