Fetal hemoglobin: optimum conditions for its estimation by alkali denaturation

Alkali denaturation is the most commonly used technic to estimate fetal hemoglobin in red blood cells. The Betke and colleagues method (Nature 184: 1959; 1877-78) using cyanmethemoglobin (HiCN) was recommended by an International Committee for Standardization in Hematology for fetal hemoglobin levels between 2 and 40%. We showed that precision with samples containing up to 5% fetal hemoglobin can be considerably improved by measuring the absorbance of HiCN at 420 nm rather than at 540 nm because the molar absorptivity is 10 times greater in the Soret band. To determine optimum conditions for the assay, we studied the kinetics and stoichiometry of conversion of hemoglobin to HiCN with various concentrations and mixtures of ferricyanide, kinetics of alkali denaturation, ammonium sulfate precipitation of denatured HiCN, filtration as opposed to centrifugation for separating denatured HiCN, stability of HiCn in water and KCN solutions, and linearity of absorbance in the Soret band. With our modified procedure, the CV with normal amounts (less than 1%) of fetal hemoglobin improved from 28% to 8.7%. The CVs with 6.8% and 55% fetal hemoglobin were 7.0-4.4% respectively, and linear estimates were obtained with cells containing up to 50% fetal hemoglobin. We conclude that our modified alkali denaturation procedure yields reliable and reproducible estimates of fetal hemoglobin over a wide range of concentrations.