Objective: Oral supplementation with iron is a standard intervention for treating or preventing iron deficiency with or without anemia. Over the last few decades, various forms of oral iron have been developed to improve treatment tolerability and iron bioavailability. In this review, we gathered research data regarding the use of iron protein succinylate since it was first marketed in the 1980s.Methods: Electronic databases - PubMed and the Cochrane Library - were searched for studies published up to March 2019. Clinical or observational studies reporting data on the tolerability of oral iron protein succinylate were included. Results were statistically described to evaluate and compare the efficacy and safety of iron protein succinylate with the comparators under study.Results: Iron protein succinylate was investigated in 54 studies: 38 randomized clinical trials and 16 observational studies, with a total of 8454 subjects. Of them, 8142 were included in the efficacy analysis: patients were divided into three population subtypes: general (n = 1899), gynecological/obstetric (n = 5283), and pediatric (n = 960). In total, 6450 patients received iron protein succinylate, experiencing a significant change in hemoglobin and ferritin in all populations. The change in all parameters was similar or higher with iron protein succinylate compared to other iron treatments evaluated. Overall, study groups receiving iron protein succinylate reported the lowest rate of adverse events.Conclusions: Although all iron treatments analyzed are effective and safe, our results suggest that iron protein succinylate may be an excellent choice to treat iron deficiency and anemia due to its superior effectiveness and tolerability.
Keywords: Iron protein succinylate; iron deficiency; iron-deficiency anemia; oral iron efficacy; oral iron replacement therapy; oral iron tolerability.