BACKGROUND

Nowadays, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recognizes the use of three tests for the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus, including the determination of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c).

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate if the established value of 6.5% of glycated hemoglobin for the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus is applicable to the Mexican population.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

A descriptive, transversal and analytic study was done in October 2016 in persons that were subjected to a capillary test for HbA1c and serum glucose.

RESULTS

There were included 388 subjects in whom it was determined that the age and the sex did not influence on the obtaining of a determinate level of HbA1c. Capillary HbA1c test tended to diagnose a greater number of cases of prediabetes (170 vs 63) and diabetes (27 vs 13) compared with serum glucose test, with a difference in the number of healthy persons between the two groups of 121 (191 healthy persons with HbA1C and 312 healthy persons with serum glucose); however, both variables shared a 90.2% of similarity (p < 0.001). It was obtained a new threshold of HbA1C for the diagnosis of diabetes of 6.65% (with sensitivity and specificity of 76% and 97%, respectively).

CONCLUSION

With the new cutoff value the incidence of cases of diabetes decreased in the HbA1c group, with a reduction of 7% to 4.9% (27 to 19 cases).

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