Yen CL, Lin YS, Lu YA, et al. - Using a novel study design, researchers sought to assess how intravenous iron is associated with infectious diseases. From Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database, they included 1,410 eligible patients who had initiated hemodialysis (HD) between 1998 and 2008. They identified their first infectious disease in the period between 1.5 years after dialysis initiation and 2010 and defined it as the index date. They used the case-crossover design to compare the odds of exposure to intravenous iron within the 1-month period immediately preceding the index date (ie, the case period) vs iron exposure in three different matched control periods for the same enrollee. The case period vs total control periods exhibited no significant difference in terms of the odds of intravenous iron exposure. Findings thereby suggest no significant association of intravenous iron supplementation with increase short-term infection risk among HD patients.