Abstract: Objective To explore the correlation between serum iron levels and granulomatous lobular mastitis (GLM).Methods A total of 102 patients with GLM were admitted from May 2022 to May 2023. According to the disease course stage at the time of the patients’ visit, they were divided into the mass stage group (29 cases), the abscess stage group (48 cases), and the remission stage group (25 cases).Compare the serum iron levels of patients with GLM at different stages.Spearman correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between serum iron levels and inflammatory indicators, and the changes in serum iron levels of patients before and after treatment remission were compared through follow-up.Results All the 102 GLM patients were female.The serum iron levels of patients in the abscess stage group, the mass stage group and the remission stage group were 12.8 (10.20,17.50) μmol/L, 12.8 (10.20,17.50) μmol/L and 15.4 (13.65,18.50) μmol/L, respectively. The abscess stage group was lower than the mass stage group and the remission stage group, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001).The results of bivariate Spearman correlation analysis showed that the serum iron levels were moderately negatively correlated with white blood cell count, neutrophil count and the percentage of neutrophils（r=-0.336,P=0.001；r=-0.361,P=0.001；r=-0.334,P<0.01）,low intensity negative correlation with monocyte count（r=-0.214,P=0.031）,moderately positively correlated with the percentage of lymphocytes, the levels of interleukin (IL)-2,IL-4,IL-10（r=0.328,P<0.01;r=0.494,P=0.023;r=0.514,P=0.017;r=0.478,P=0.028）.Serum iron levels in 45 GLM follow-up patients after treatment remission were higher than those before remission [(15.09±4.78) μmol/L vs. (10.64± 4.47) μmol/L,P<0.001].Conclusion Serum iron level is associated with disease severity,inflammatory markers such as immune cells and cytokines,and disease outcome of GLM.

Key words: granulomatous lobular mastitis;serum iron level;inflammation;relevance