Objective: To assess the value of Halena SAS-3 full automatic hemoglobin agarose electrophoresis in the diagnosis of thalassemia.
Methods: Hemoglobin A and A2 was detected by agarose electrophoresis in 200 blood samples collected from 170 healthy subjects, 2 patients with beta-thalassemia, 12 with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, 12 acute myelocytic leukemia and with 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Results: The Mean+/-SD of hemoglobin A in the healthy subjects and patients with beta-thalassemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myelocytic leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma was 97.55+/-0.51, 97.01+/-0.329, 97.42+/-0.57, 97.44+/-0.55, and that of A2 was 2.44+/-0.51, 2.99+/-0.32, 2.84+/-0.28, 2.55+/-0.55, respectively. The values of electrophoresed hemoglobin F of the 2 patients with beta-thalassemia were higher than those of the normal adults. The within-run coefficient of variation (CV) and between-run CV was 0.17 and 7.76 for hemoglobin A, and 0.16 and 7.14 for hemoglobin A2, respectively.
Conclusions: Halena SAS-3 full automatic agarose electrophoresis system possesses strong resolving power in detecting trace abnormal hemoglobin and accurately identifies unusual evaluation of hemoglobin A2 and F to facilitate the diagnosis of thalassemia.