What Is Pernicious Anemia?
3. Other Causes
As mentioned before, gastrectomy or rare genetic disorders can also cause classic pernicious anemia. However, when physicians study a patient with megaloblastic anemia there are many other diagnoses or causes for vitamin B-12 deficiency they must consider.
For example, patients can also present with vitamin B-12 deficiency due to inadequate dietary intake of the vitamin (i.e. vegetarians) or to other causes of damage to the lining of the stomach (i.e. medications, ingestion of caustics, low gastric acid secretion). Moreover, causes of bacterial overgrowth in the intestine (i.e. diverticula), insufficient pancreatic enzyme production (i.e. chronic pancreatitis), and disorders of the lining of the ileum (i.e. ileum resection) can also lead to vitamin B-12 deficiency.
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