Letters to the Editor

Indian Pediatrics 2003; 40:917

Comparison of HemoCue Method with the Cyanmethemoglobin Method for Estimation of Hemoglobin

We read the article entitled "Comparison of HemoCue method with Cynamethemo-globin method for estimation of Hemoglobin" with great interest(1). We found it extremely useful and informative. We would also like to share the findings of our research study on the same subject with the readers of the Indian Pediatrics. We conducted pilot study in Department of Hematology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, during the months of June to September 2002. Two hundred venous blood samples received in our laboratory for other hematological investiga-tions were listed for this study. Hemoglobin estimations were carried out in these samples by the Cyanmethemoglobin method (CYN) and the HemoCue Method (HQ)(2,3). Table I depicts the distribution of hemoglobin levels as obtained by standard Cyanmethemoglobin and HemoCue methods. The results revealed that for all levels of hemoglobin concen-trations HQ method overestimated the hemoglobin concentrations than the CYN method. Our study also highlighted that the HemoCue method overestimates the hemoglobin values.

Table I

 Comparison of Hemocue with the cyanmethemoglobin method for 
Estimation of Hemoglobin

Hemoglobin level (g/dl)	Method 1* Mean ± SD (g/dl)	Method 2** Mean ± SD (g/dl)
<7.0 (n = 33)	5.3 ± 1.2	5.8 ± 1.6
7.0 - 9.9 (n = 66)	8.6 ± 0.8	9.2 ± 0.9
10.0 and more	12.1 ± 1.6	12.9 ± 1.9
(n = 101)
Total (n = 200)	9.8 ± 2.9	10.5 ± 3.1

*Cyanmethemoglobin method.
**HemoCue method.

 

Renu Saxena,
Rachna Malik,
Department of Hematology,
All India Institute of Medical Sciences,
Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110 029,
India.

References