An evaluation of hemoglobin determination using sodium lauryl sulfate

The standard reference method for hemoglobin determination for years has been the photometric quantitation of cyanmethemoglobin. Other existing methods have not gained popularity in North America. In an attempt to eliminate hazardous cyanide waste, a method to determine the hemoglobin concentration in whole blood using sodium lauryl sulfate has been devised and recently was released as a commercial reagent. The authors compare this new method with the cyanmethemoglobin method using two hematology analyzers. Their results show that there is excellent correlation between the two methods (r2 = 0.996). In addition, other elements of the complete blood count also show good correlation. Thus, it was confirmed that the sodium lauryl sulfate method of estimating hemoglobin concentration is an appropriate alternative to the cyanmethemoglobin method and avoids the generation of toxic wastes.