Multicenter evaluation of an enzymatic method for glycated albumin

BACKGROUND: The use of glycated albumin (GA) has been proposed as an additional glycemic control marker particularly useful in intermediate-term monitoring and in situation when HbA1c test is not reliable. METHODS: We have performed the first multicenter evaluation of the analytical performance of the enzymatic method quantILab Glycated Albumin assay implemented on the most widely used clinical chemistry analyzers (i.e. Abbott Architect C8000, Beckman Coulter AU 480 and 680, Roche Cobas C6000, Siemens ADVIA 2400 and 2400 XPT). RESULTS: The repeatability of the GA measurement (expressed as CV, %) implemented in the participating centers ranged between 0.9% and 1.2%. The within-laboratory CVs ranged between 1.2% and 1.6%. A good alignment between laboratories was found, with correlation coefficients from 0.996 to 0.998. Linearity was confirmed in the range from 7.6 to 84.7%. CONCLUSION: The new enzymatic method for glycated albumin evaluated by our investigation is suitable for clinical use