CLINICAL PROFILES

Experience by many observers in the last few years has shown that intravenously administered iron dextran is a useful and safe agent in the management of iron-deficiency anemia. The conscientious physician, who has diagnosed iron deficiency by the absence of hemosiderin in marrow or by the characteristic serum values for iron and total iron-binding capacity, may well prefer to inject the calculated correct amount of iron rather than depend on the capriciousness of the patient’s gastrointestinal tract or pill-taking habits. In clinical situations in which the doctor-patient contacts are severely limited in number, intravenous injection may be the only reliable way to administer the proper amount of iron. Treatment by intravenous injection, only after employing firm diagnostic criteria, may restore iron to its proper place in the physician’s armamentarium and elevate it from buckshot to bullet.