Objective: To investigate the cut-off point of glycated albumin (GA) in the detection of diabetes mellitus (DM) and impaired glucose regulation (IGR).
Methods: This study was conducted in 20-84 years-old adults who had risk factors of diabetes but no previously diagnosed diabetes. There were finally 392 individuals included and received the measurement of GA and HbA1c. Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was plotted to determine the performance of GA.
Results: (1) Based on the diabetes diagnosis criteria of WHO (1999), the subjects were divided into DM group (n = 131), IGR group (n = 126), and normal glucose tolerance (NGT) group (n = 135). The GA level in the three groups tended to increase (P < 0.05). (2) Spearman correlation analysis demonstrated that GA was positively correlated with glycated haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) (r = 0.942 1, P < 0.05), fasting plasma glucose (FPG) (r = 0.856 6, P < 0.05) and 2 h post-load plasma glucose (2-hPG) (r = 0.813 7, P < 0.05). (3) The mean levels of serum GA/HbA1c were 2.58 +/- 0.37, 2.44 +/- 0.37 and 2.17 +/- 0.25 for DM, IGR and NGT respectively. (4) The optimal cut-off points for detecting diabetes were 16.6% in GA [area under the carve (AUC) = 0.888], producing the sensitivity of 71.8% and the specificity of 87.4%.
Conclusion: GA as a single screening test shows adequate to detect newly diagnosed DM, and the optimal GA cut-off point was 16.6% in this study.