What question did this study set out to answer?

Assess the effectiveness and safety of iron supplementation for reducing deferral, iron deficiency, and anaemia among blood donors.

Oral or parenteral iron supplementation to reduce deferral, iron deficiency and/or anaemia in blood donors

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Randomized trial assesses iron supplementation's impact on deferral and anaemia in blood donors, suggesting improved donor retention.

Assess the effectiveness and safety of iron supplementation for reducing deferral, iron deficiency, and anaemia among blood donors.
Conducted randomized controlled trials comparing oral or parenteral iron supplementation to no supplementation.
Included 38 trials with 7475 participants, focusing on blood donors.
Analyzed risk of bias using Cochrane's RoB 2 tool and performed random-effects meta-analyses.
Oral iron probably reduced deferral rates due to low haemoglobin (RR 0.39, 95% CI 0.20 to 0.76).
Oral iron supplementation led to higher haemoglobin (MD 2.52, 95% CI 0.77 to 4.26 g/L) and ferritin (MD 12.39, 95% CI 8.16 to 16.62 ng/mL) levels compared to no iron.
IV iron led to higher haemoglobin (MD 8.02, 95% CI 3.22 to 12.83 g/L) and ferritin (MD 78.16, 95% CI 37.20 to 119.12 ng/mL) compared to no iron.

Geneen et al. (2026) studied this question.

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