Assessment of a simple electrophoretic method for measuring HbA1

This work has assessed a simple, commercially available method of separating HbA1 electrophoretically on agar gel films and found it to be straightforward and effective.

Abstract

Measurements of glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1) are finding increased use in the management of patients with diabetes mellitus. However, present analytical methods are either tedious or prone to error. The commonest method uses small ion-exchange columns and is fairly simple, but the results depend greatly on analytical and environmental variables such as differences between batches of ion-exchangers, reaction pH and reaction temperature [1]. Failure to recognise these problems, due to unavailability of adequate quality control and standard material, may lead to grossly inaccurate results. We have assessed a simple, commercially available method of separating HbA1 electrophoretically on agar gel films.