Comparative study of various methods in the estimation of blood HbA1c and its outcome

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a major health problem all over the world. Blood glucose measurement has limited value in assessing the long term glycaemic control. Estimation of HbA1c is now routinely used in clinical laboratories for long term assessment of glyceamic control. The result of different methods of HbA1C estimation has a lot of variations and hence it is essential to compare their results. This study is aimed to assess the accuracy and reliability of estimation of HbA1c levels by PEITT and Column Chromatography with ion-exchange resin by comparing it with the hba1c levels of High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) which is a reference method. We have included 50 patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus in our study. HbA1c was determined using BIO RAD D-10 HbA1c Analyzer, Immuno-turbidimetric assay in ERBA-Chem semi automated analyzer and Column chromatography with Ion-exchange resin method in ERBA-Chem semi automated analyzer. The results obtained from Immuno-turbidimetric assay and Ion-exchange resin methods were compared with the results of BIO RAD D-10 HbA1c Analyzer. The results obtained from Particle Enhanced Immuno-Turbidimetric Test method showed a better correlation with BIO RAD D-10 HbA1c Analyzer than Column chromatography with Ion-exchange resin (CCG-IER). Hence, Particle Enhanced Immuno-Turbidimetric Test method is more reliable and accurate and can be used as an alternative method to HPLC in clinical laboratories.