William E Strauss,1 Michael Auerbach2 1AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Waltham, MA, USA; 2Auerbach Hematology and Oncology, Baltimore, MD, USA Abstract: Most physicians appear to be aware of the health consequences of advanced anemia, especially in the acute setting, frequently responding with a not inconsequential therapeutic default of transfusion. In contrast, the profound impact that chronic anemia, of any degree, may have on a patient’s performance is underappreciated. The focus of this review is to 1) delineate the consistent and broad impact of anemia on patient quality of life as documented by multiple well-validated patient-reported outcome instruments and 2) demonstrate the essential normalization of the debilitation as assessed by these instruments following the administration of intravenous iron. Keywords: anemia, health-related quality of life, intravenous iron, iron deficiency anemia