According to the CDC, about 1 in 10 adults in the United States have diabetes. MLO’s newest e-handbook provides important information to laboratorians on diabetic screening measures, details on guidelines and recommendations for diagnosis and management of diabetes mellitus, elevated fetal hemoglobin (HbF), and the laboratory testing solutions.
Some articles featured in the e-book, “The laboratory's role in testing and managing patient diabetes,” include the following:
Importance of awareness of elevated fetal hemoglobin (HbF) in HbA1c testing
Elevated fetal hemoglobin (HbF) in adults, though well-documented, remains a point of interest in clinical diagnostics, particularly in HbA1c testing. Since HbA1c testing measures glycated hemoglobin to estimate average blood glucose levels, elevated HbF may lead to either falsely high or falsely low HbA1c values, depending on the testing method used.
Navigating the new normal for A1c analysis: Interpreting recently released clinical guidelines in the lab
The “Guidelines and Recommendations for Laboratory Analysis in the Diagnosis and Management of Diabetes Mellitus” provide specific recommendations based on published data and expert consensus. Several analytes are found to have minimal clinical value at the present time, and measurement of them is not recommended. The new guidelines set tighter standards, make explicit the potential for misleading results, and define patients for whom the test is absolutely inappropriate.
Diabetes and heart failure: Understanding the role of cardiac biomarker testing
Laboratories may begin to see an influx of cardiac biomarker tests accompanying HbA1c testing based on updated American Diabetes Association (ADA) guidelines concerning heart failure in people with diabetes. Specifically, the ADA’s heart failure recommendations advise that clinicians consider testing adults with diabetes by measuring B-type natriuretic peptide [BNP] or N-terminal pro-BNP [NT-proBNP] levels to help prevent stage C, or symptomatic, heart failure.
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