medwireNews: Researchers have found that, contrary to received wisdom, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) is an accurate guide to blood glucose levels in patients with cystic fibrosis.
During up to 7 days of continuous glucose monitoring, HbA1c levels correlated as closely with average sensor glucose levels in 93 patients with cystic fibrosis (average age 14 years) as they did in 29 healthy study participants.
Christine Chan (Children’s Hospital Colorado, Aurora, USA) and study co-authors also looked at fructosamine, glycated albumin, and 1,5-anhydroglucitol, but none of these alternative glycemic markers correlated with blood glucose levels more strongly than HbA1c did, they report in Diabetes Care.
However, they note that the assumption that HbA1c underestimates blood glucose in cystic fibrosis arose from research showing that it has poor sensitivity for cystic fibrosis-related diabetes (CFRD) detected by oral glucose tolerance testing.
They stress that their study did not address the issue of diagnostic accuracy and that they “are not advocating use of HbA1c for routine CFRD screening based on this study’s findings.”
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