The use of cluster and principal component analysis in the estimation of iron status in term newborns

Objective: To assess the relationship between parameters of iron homeostasis in infants and clinical features characterizing newborns and their mothers. Methods: The goal of the present work was to determine nine iron status parameters, i.e. hepcidin, prohepcidin, soluble transferrin receptor, ferritin, total iron binding capacity, unsaturated iron binding capacity, transferrin saturation, erythropoietin and total iron concentration, in the cord blood of 57 term newborns as well as to determine the complete blood count in their mothers. Moreover, an appraisal of the relationships between all of the iron parameters, the mothers' hematological factors and 12 clinical attributes was carried out using both cluster analysis (CA) and principal component analysis (PCA). Results: We found that hepcidin is not correlated with its precursor, but it is strongly positively correlated with the total iron concentration. The CA divided all of the 24 parameters into three clusters and showed that certain clinical features, e. g. the APGAR score, mother's age or parity are related to the hepcidin and prohepcidin concentration. Conclusion: We demonstrated that CA and PCA are efficacious methods for assessing the relationship between iron metabolism parameters in cord blood and large amounts of clinical characteristics.