Correlation between Red Cell Indices and HbA1c in Adult Individuals

The gold standard test for diagnosing diabetes mellitus is haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c); nevertheless, red cell indices might impact seriously on HbA1c measurement. Anaemia is the commonest heamatological disorder causing alterations of the red cell indices. There has been a controversy over the use of HbA1c as a diagnostic tool in different types of anaemias. As there are very few studies correlating red cell indices with HbA1c, this study was conducted to find out the correlation between HbA1c and red cell indices, Pack Cell Volume (PCV), Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV), Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin (MCH), Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin Concentration (MCHC) and red cell Distribution Width (RDW). A hospital and laboratory-based analytical cross- sectional study was conducted to evaluate the correlation between the above mentioned red cell indices and HbA1c in adult individuals who had fasting plasma glucose levels between 140 mg/dL and 200 mg/dL. 150 patients whose the age ranged from 18-75 years were included in the study. Out of those 150 patients, 38.7 % (58) were males and 61.3% (92) were females. The correlation between HbA1c and RDW-CV, R2= 0.0012, Pearson correlation (Pc) = (0.035), p= 0.710, correlation between HbA1c and MCHC, R2=0.0025, Pc=0.050, p=0.542, correlation between HbA1c and MCH, R2=0.0008, Pc=0.028, p=0.731. The correlation between HbA1c with MCV, R2=0.0005, Pc=0.022, p=0.789 and correlation between HbA1c and PCV, R2=0.0017, P=0.04, p=0.690. In conclusion, there was no statistically significant correlation between HbA1c and red cell indices, RDW- CV, MCV, MCH, MCHC and PCV