Treating anemia of chronic disease and anemia of chronic kidney disease may be limited by elevated levels of hepcidin and new promising treatments are still in pre-clinical and clinical trial phases.
We conclude that serum hepcidin levels can predict the hematologic responsiveness to erythropoiesis-stimulating agent therapy in anemia of chronic disease.
The pathogenesis of ACD had been poorly understood, but recently there has been important progress: upregulation of interleukin-6 (Il-6) secondary to the underlying chronic inflammatory disease upregulates expression of the protein hepcidin.