Abstract Background: Glycosyated haemoglobin (HbA 1c ) is prone to analytical interference by haemoglobin (Hb) variants depending on the method used, which may lead to inaccurate results and improper treatment. We studied effect of common Hb variants on HbA 1c obtained by the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. Methods: Samples processed for HbA 1c by HPLC method (Bio-Rad D-10) and found positive Hb variants (117) such as Hb S trait, Beta-Thal trait, Hb D and Hb E traits were included in the study after confirming their variant state. They were also run by the immunoassay (IA) method (Roche Tinia-quant). Later, the stored samples were analysed by the capillary electrophoresis (CE) method (Mini Cap flex piercing – Sebia) in a batch-wise analysis. Results: Among the variant population, a comparison of mean HbA 1c values between the HPLC/CE, HPLC/IA and IA/CE methods showed no statistically significant difference ( P = 0.65, 0.18 and 0.41, respectively). A similar observation was found even among the subgroups of variants. Correlation analysis also showed a strong positive correlation between the above-mentioned method pairs ( r = 0.984, 0.967 and 0.972, respectively). Bland–Altman analysis between the methods HPLC/CE and HPLC/IA in variant populations, a bias was 0.13% and 0.25%, respectively, was observed and was not clinically significant. A similar observation was found among individual variant subgroups. Conclusions: HbA 1c values were not significantly affected by common Hb variants when determined by the HPLC method.
Phaneendra et al. (Thu,) studied this question.