The determination of iron metabolism rates associated with hematological findings is an important tool to diagnosis, control and differentiation of anemic states. This study has as objective to determine the iron parameters (serum iron, unsaturated iron binding-capacity, total iron binding-capacity, transferrin saturation rate (IST), transferrin and ferritin) in healthy dogs. It was selected 120 dogs, shared in four different groups of sex and age (30 young males and 30 adult males, 30 young females and 30 adult females). The blood samples were collected between 8 and 11h AM, with fasted dogs. The average values to serum iron, unsaturated iron binding-capacity, total iron-binding-capacity, transferring percent saturation and transferrin are 138.2µl dl-1; 371µl dl-1; 232.6µl dl-1; 37.7% e 259.6mg dl-1 respectively. These rates were evaluated according to sex and age variation. The average values submitted to Tukey test it were not significant (P<0,01). Considering a 5% level variation of error probability, the serum iron was higher in adult male dogs, comparing with young male ones (P<0,05). The ferritin values were 0ng mL-1 in human chemiluminescent immunoassay kit.
unsaturated iron binding-capacity; total iron binding-capacity; ferritin; transferrin
