A Direct Comparison of the Performance of HemoCue Plasma/Low HB Analyzer versus Optical Spectroscopy for Quality...

This study assesses HemoCue Plasma/Low Hb Analyzer (HemoCue) as an alternative to spectrophotometry for measuring free hemoglobin (fHb) in blood product quality control procedures.

We analyzed a total number of 100 leucocyte-depleted erythrocyte concentrate (EC) samples stored for 39-43 days and 56 frozen plasma (FP) unit samples from Fresenius (F) and Macopharma (M) bags.

Median fHb measured for EC with HemoCue was 0.200 g/dL (IQR 0.100-0.260) (F) and 0.160 g/dL (0.110-0.200) (M) compared to 0.170 g/dL (0.109-0.242) (F) and 0.141 g/dL (0.101-0.207) (M) via spectrophotometry. Median fHb measured in FP with HemoCue was 0.010 g/dL (IQR 0.010-0.030) (F) and 0.020 g/dL (0.010-0.040) (M) compared to 0.003 g/dL (0.002-0.003) (F) and 0.001 g/dL (0.000-0.002) (M) using spectrophotometry. For EC, overall correlation between methods was strong for F (r _s = 0.87; CI: 0.78-0.96) and for M (r _s = 0.74; CI: 0.51-0.96). Bland-Altman analysis for EC revealed a median difference of 0.02 g/dL (-0.10 to 0.23) (F) and 0.00 g/dL (-0.08 to 0.14) (M) comparing HemoCue and spectrophotometer. For FP, Bland-Altman analysis revealed a median difference of 0.01 g/dL (0.00-0.08) (F) and 0.02 g/dL (0.00-0.14).

While obtained results were highly similar using both devices when assessing fHb in EC, HemoCue showed a consistent overestimation of fHb in FP samples compared to spectrophotometry. HemoCue demonstrated acceptable intraday and interday precision across concentration ranges and offers operational advantages, including faster turnaround times. Altogether in quality control analyses, HemoCue turned out to be a valuable tool for fHb measurements in EC with some limitations for FP.