Expression of the HFE hemochromatosis gene in a community-based population of elderly women.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Recent studies suggest that the clinical penetrance of associated hereditary hemochromatosis, defined as either the C282Y homozygote or compound heterozygote HFE genotype status, is much lower than previously thought.

METHODS: We investigated the clinical penetrance and phenotypic expression of HFE-associated hereditary hemochromatosis in a community-based population of 1352 elderly female subjects with a mean age of 75 years. Serum transferrin saturation and ferritin levels were determined on all subjects bearing a C282Y mutation and a subset of wild-type C282Y subjects.

RESULTS: The prevalences of the C282Y homozygous and compound heterozygous HFE genotypes were 0.15% (2/1352) and 2.0% (27/1352), respectively. The observed prevalence of 0.15% for C282Y homozygotes borders on significance (P = 0.054) for deviation from the Hardy-Weinberg population equilibrium calculations, which predict a prevalence of 0.49%, whereas the observed and predicted compound heterozygote prevalences were not significantly different. Clinical symptoms of hemochromatosis were absent in both the C282Y homozygote subjects. Of the compound heterozygous subjects, 2/27 (7%) had elevated serum transferrin saturation and ferritin values; however, clinical symptoms of hemochromatosis were absent in both. Considered as a whole, the compound heterozygous subjects had markedly elevated means for serum iron (19.4 vs 16.0 micromol/L, P = 0.0008), transferrin saturation (34.8% vs 25.2%, P < 0.0001) and ferritin (157 vs 92 microg/L, P = 0.002) compared with the wild-type subjects.

CONCLUSION: The C282Y homozygous HFE hereditary hemochromatosis genotype was under-represented in this elderly cohort, whereas the compound heterozygous genotype was not. None of the homozygous or compound heterozygous subjects expressed the phenotype of iron overload disease.