The value of combined detection for diagnosing of thalassemia

Objective To investigate the value of the combined detection of the mean corpuscular volume (MCV ),red blood cell (RBC )and smotic fragility test and the test of hemoglobin(Hb) electrophoresis for diagnosing the thalassemia in the high incidence area of thalassemia .Methods 309 samples of thalassemaia patients and 201 samples of nonthalassemia verified by means of molecular biologic technique in the Evgenic and Genetic Laboratory of my hospital were analyzed .Results The sensitivity and specificity of each single test was as follow :Those of MCV test were 93.9% and 85.1% respectively; those of RBC osmotic fragility test were 82.2% and 88.6% respectively; and those of Hb electrophores were 82.8% and 79.1% respectively. The sensitivity and specifility of combined of MCV with RBC osmotic fragitity test were 99.7% and 75.6% and those of MCV with Hb electrophoresis were 99.7% and 84.1% respectively. By u test,there were significant difference in the sensitivity and specificity between the single test and the combined two tests (P0.05).Conclusion The combined dectection of MCV +RBC osmotic fragitity test and MCV +Hb electrophoresis is better than the single one.Primary hospitals should be suggested to use MCV+RBC osmotic fragitity test as the screening of thalassemia .The hospitals with enough resources can use MCV +Hb electrophoresis as the screening of thalassemia,which can also be used to diagnose the other abnormal Hb.