Online measurement of haemoglobin concentration.

BACKGROUND Regular monitoring of haemoglobin in chronic haemodialysis patients is essential to ensure that targets for anaemia management are consistently achieved. Repeated blood sampling can be time consuming, invasive and, for pragmatic reasons, only infrequently performed, often delaying therapeutic change. On-line optical continuous monitoring of the haemoglobin concentration would allow non-invasive assessment of haemoglobin, and immediate therapeutic changes could be implemented, thereby improving the efficiency of anaemia management. This study aimed to evaluate the use of on-line haemoglobin concentration measurement. METHODS Eleven dialysis monitors (Integra Hospal) were calibrated using at least five haemoglobin samples spread over at least 4 g/dl. Optical measurement of haemoglobin concentration is already incorporated into the dialysis monitor to allow the study of relative blood volume. Fifteen patients were studied with paired haemoglobin measurements (i.e. dialysis monitor value and conventional laboratory assessment) taken at intervals over 7 months (mean 11.0+/-0.28 g/dl, range 7.5-14.8). RESULTS Haemoglobin measured by Hemoscan correlated well with the laboratory measurements (r2 = 0.83, P<0.0001), indicating that the machine values are broadly comparable with laboratory figures. There was a mean underestimate of haemoglobin by Hemoscan of 0.34%. There was no significant deterioration in the quality of this correlation over the study period (r2>0.8). CONCLUSION The ability of the dialysis monitor to measure the optical concentration of haemoglobin compared with conventional laboratory assessment is both precise and accurate. Regular on-line assessment of haemoglobin may allow more proactive micromanagement of renal anaemia, with a reduction in the time taken to achieve clinically important targets and give early warning of suboptimal response to treatment.