Glycated albumin is a potential diagnostic tool for diabetes mellitus

Using a community-based population cross-sectional study, we investigated the validity of an enzymatic method for glycated albumin (GA) measurements and evaluated its utility as a diagnostic tool for diabetes mellitus (DM). In total, 1,211 participants from the city of Harbin, People's Republic of China, were enrolled in the study. A receiver operating charac- teristic (ROC) analysis for GA, fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and haemoglobin A 1c (HbA 1c ) measurements in diagnosed and undiagnosed DM were compared, based on a definition of DM using 1999 WHO criteria. We also estimated the correlation among GA, HbA 1c and other clinical characteristics. Significant and positive correlations of fasting serum GA with FPG (r0.8097) and HbA 1c (r0.8976) were found in participants enrolled in the study. ROC analysis for GA predicting undiag- nosed DM with a cut-off point of 15.7% was similar to that of FPG and HbA 1c . Therefore, our data indicate that GA is a potential tool for DM diagnosis.