A Comparative Study on the Methods of Glycosylated Hemoglobin Measurement

The increased glycosylation of hemoglobin in diabetes is well established. Measurement of glycosylated hemoglobin is being used by many centers to monitor diabetic contro l. There are several methods for the measurement of the glycosylated hemoglobin and in each method, there are several relative merits and drawbacks. We compared the glycosylated hemoglobin measured by cation exchange resin column chromatography (minicolumn method) , chemical colorimetry (thiobarbituric acid method [TBA]) , and fluorometry (diacetyldihydrolutidine method [DDL]) for the correlation. To know whether the labile form of the glycosylated hemoglobin could be measured by three methods, we incubated the RBC in 1000 mgjdl glucose saline and subsequently in glucose-free saline and measured the glycosylated hemoglobin by the three methods before and after the incubations