Derivation of blood hemoglobin concentration from hematocrit: a simple method for rural areas

ABSTRACT

Hematocrit and red blood cell count can be easily measured with an acceptable accuracy in most rural health care centers. A linear regression analysis was performed on the hemoglobin [dependent variable] and hematocrit [independent variable] levels of 22 patients with isolated iron-deficiency anemia, 26 known cases of isolated beta -thalassemia trait, and 25 normal individuals. It was found that the mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration [MCHC] has an almost constant value of 33 g/dL in the three conditions studied. The relative error was below 3% in determining the Hb concentration from hematocrit among normal people and patients with either iron deficiency or minor beta -thalassemia. Using this finding, we tried to explain how to derive other important hematological indices, i.e. blood hemoglobin level, mean corpuscular volume, and mean corpuscular hemoglobin from hematocrit and red blood cell count, with an acceptable accuracy in the situations studied. This could be considered as a useful method to determine blood hemoglobin concentration in rural health care centers without recouse to Coulter analyzers