Anemia is a very common condition in patients with gastrointestinal tumors, with a negative impact
on mortality, morbidity and quality of life. The underlying causes are blood loss, chemotherapyinduced myelosuppression and iron deficiency. Yet, anemia and more specifically iron deficiency
remains undertreated in daily clinical practice, mainly because many clinicians are not familiar
with using intravenous iron products to treat iron deficiency. Many aspects of the pathophysiology
of iron deficiency are now better understood. This review focuses on the mechanisms of iron
deficiency in cancer patients and summarizes the approach to successfully treating it.
Keywords Anemia, iron deficiency, digestive oncology