HemoCue Hb-801 Provides More Accurate Hemoglobin Assessment in Blood Donors Than OrSense NBM-200

Hemoglobin levels are commonly assessed to prevent causing or worsening of anemia in prospective blood donors. We compared head-to-head the accuracy of different technologies for measuring hemoglobin suitable for use in mobile donation units. We included 144 persons donating platelets at the Central Institute for Blood Transfusion and Immunology in Innsbruck, Austria. Hemoglobin levels were measured in venous blood using the portable hemoglobinometer HemoCue Hb-801 and noninvasively using OrSense NBM-200, and compared to values obtained with the Sysmex XN-430, an automated hematology analyzer employing the sodium lauryl sulphate method, which is broadly used as reference method in everyday clinical practice. Mean age of participants was 34.2 years (SD 13.0); 34.0% were female. Hemoglobin values measured with HemoCue were more strongly correlated with the Sysmex XN-430 (r = 0.90 [95% CI: 0.87-0.93]) than measured with OrSense (r = 0.49 [0.35-0.60]). On average, HemoCue overestimated hemoglobin by 0.40 g/dL (0.31-0.48) and OrSense by 0.75 g/dL (95% CI: 0.54-0.96). When using OrSense, we found evidence for higher overestimation at higher hemoglobin levels (proportional bias) specifically in females but not in males (P_difference = .003). Sensitivity and specificity for classifying donors according to the hemoglobin donation thresholds were 99.2% (95% CI: 95.3%-100.0%) and 43.8% (23.1%-66.8%) for HemoCue vs 95.3% (89.9%-98.0%) and 12.5% (2.2%-37.3%) for OrSense. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves were higher using HemoCue vs OrSense both in females (0.933 vs 0.547; P = .044) and males (0.948 vs 0.628; P < .001). HemoCue Hb-801 measures hemoglobin more accurately than OrSense NBM-200 in the setting of mobile blood donation units. Our findings are particularly relevant for females, having in mind that anemia is more prevalent in females than in males.