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Updated: Jul 17, 2026

A Point-of-Care Method with Integrated Decision Support Tool to Estimate Anemia at Population Level
Published on: January 19, 2024
Predicted effects of hemoglobin A1c assay precision on a patient population distribution of serial hemoglobin A1c
Douglas F Stickle1, Mark L Seligman, James D Landmark
1Department of Pathology and Microbiology, 983135 University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha NE 68198-3135, United States. dstickle@unmc.edu
Background:
Interpretation of serial measurements of % hemoglobin A1c includes an assessment of differences from preceding values (DHbA1c). We examined predicted effects of different assay precisions on an observed population distribution for DHbA1c.
Methods:
Primary data were 5260 DHbA1c values from sequential HbA1c measurement pairs obtained within 1 calendar year. Each DHbA1c was replaced by a distribution obtained from sampling each component HbA1c value according to a normal distribution characterized by a fixed coefficient of variation (CV) of either 1%, 3% or 5% (forming data sets A, B and C, respectively). Data sets B and C, with inferior precision, were compared with the reference data set A (highest precision).
Results:
Using DHbA1c bin widths of 0.5% HbA1c, differences in assay precision caused significant redistribution of numbers within bins. For instance, for CV=5%, there was a 7.2% decrease in the number of results within the DHbA1c bin=(-0.5 to
Conclusion:
Different HbA1c assay CVs can significantly affect the fraction of patients within different clinical categorizations for DHbA1c and consequently may differently influence patient care recommendations.
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