Low Cost Combination of DCIP and MCV Was Better Than That of DCIP and OF in the screening for Hemoglobin E
Kannadit Prayongratana MD*, Chantana Polprasert MD*, Kasem Raungrongmorakot MD**, Kanyarat Tatone BSc***, Somchai Santiwatanakul PhD***
Affiliation : * Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok ** Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok ***Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok
Objective : To evaluate hemoglobin E screening tests in a large scale of cases.
Material and Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted. Whole blood obtained from
subjects was evaluated for CBC, OF, DCIP, and hemoglobin typing.
Results : Five hundred twenty seven hemoglobin E and 280 reference subjects participated. DCIP’s sensitivity,
specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were 97.16%, 98.93%, 99.42%, and 95.19%,
respectively. These values of OF were 69.12%, 80.00%, 86.67%, and 57.88%, respectively. In the combination
of DCIP and OF gave rise to these values of 99.43%, 79.29%, 90.03%, and 96.67%, respectively. Finally the
combination of DCIP and MCV < 80 fL resulted in these values to be 99.43%, 98.93%, 99.43%, and 98.93%,
respectively. False positive and false negative rate were 1.07% and 0.57%, respectively.
Conclusion : Combination of DCIP and MCV was better than that of DCIP and OF in hemoglobin E screening.
Keywords : Thalassemia, Heterozygous hemoglobin E, Homozygous hemoglobin E, Dichlorophenolindolphenol test (DCIP), Osmotic fragility test (OF), Mean corpuscular volume (MCV)
