Sahar Rabbani, Muhammad Farooq, Samina Naeem, Nasir Uddin, Muhammad Abdul Naeem, Shahneela Jabeen.
Diagnostic efficacy of red blood cell indices in diagnosis of beta thalassemia trait taking haemoglobin electrophoresis as gold standard.
Pak Armed Forces Med J Jan ;71(3):1006-10.

Objective: To determine the diagnostic efficacy of hematological indices for the diagnosis of beta thalassemia trait taking haemoglobin electrophoresis as a gold standard. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Haematology Combined Military Hospital Lahore, from Aug to Dec 2019. Methodology: Two hundred and six anemic patients 20-70 years of age of both genders were included in the study. Blood was collected from all the patients and complete blood count were generated through automated haematology analyser Sysmex KX-21. Based on the complete blood count parameters like mean cell volume, red blood cell count, red cell distribution width and mean cell haemoglobin the haematological indices such as Mentzer, Ricerca, mean density of Hb/litre of blood, mean cell Hb density and red cell distribution width indices were calculated. The haemoglobin A2 band of >3.5% on hemoglobin electrophoresis was taken as cut off for Beta thalassemia trait. Results: Out of the 206 blood samples analysed, 120 (58%) were labelled as Beta thalassemia trait after Hb electrophoresis and 86 cases had anemia due to other causes. Mentzer index established the highest sensitivity of 92.5% whereas RICERCA index established the highest specificity of 94.1%. Mentzer and red cell distribution width index had highest diagnostic efficacy value up to 90.3%. Conclusion: We conclude that Mentzer and red cell distribution width index showed the highest diagnostic significance. The Mentzer index has the highest sensitivity whereas Ricerca index has the highest specificity.

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