Evaluation of HbA1c measurement by HPLC andenzymaticmethodmeasuring N-terminal fructosyl dipeptide of β–chain in sickle cellpatients with Diabetes mellitus

Variants are one of the designated factors which may influence the accuracy of HbA1c levelaccording to what type of assay method is used . Prevalence of sickle cell trait in Gujarat is quitehigh (6.54%) [1]. This common clinically silent hemoglobin variant may interfere in proper analysis of HbA1c. [ 2 – 6 ]But no systematic study available in this respect in tertiary care hospital in Ahmedabad. Sheth V S General hospital a tertiary care teaching hospital. This hospital caters patients fromdifferent ethnic of life.After years of using an automatedenzymatic method which measures N-terminal fructosyl dipeptides of the β-chain of HbA1c in our Clinical Biochemistrylaboratory, we recently changed to a HPLC-based method which is based on ion exchange chromatography. The change of method by HPLC enabled us to identify the presence of HbS in diabetic patients from the abnormal peaks in the chromatograms, which was not possible when we were using the enzymatic-based method.This may cause underreport or overreport of HbA1c by our laboratory. This may ultimately alter treatment plan and effective therapy of Diabetes mellitus patients.