A preliminary evaluation of attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for the hematological analysis of thalassemias

ObjectivesThe effectiveness of attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for the hematological analysis of thalassemias was evaluated.Design and methodsThe correlations of hemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin between routine method and attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were analyzed using linear regression analysis. Appropriate cut-off values of predicted mean corpuscular volume and predicted mean corpuscular hemoglobin in screening of thalassemias were derived from the receiver operator characteristic curve conducted on 103 subjects.ResultsObvious positive correlations of hemoglobin (beta = 0.876, R2 = 0.791, P < 0.001), mean corpuscular volume (beta = 0.656, R2 = 0.516, P < 0.001) and mean corpuscular hemoglobin (beta = 0.674, R2 = 0.583, P < 0.001) were observed between routine method and attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Based on the receiver operator characteristic curve analysis, the best cut off value of predicted mean corpuscular volume for the phenotype-positive subjects was found to be 79.9 fl with a sensitivity of 100.0% and a specificity of 97.8%, and the proposed cut off value of predicted mean corpuscular hemoglobin was 27.3 pg with a sensitivity of 100.0% and a specificity of 96.8%. The area under curve was 0.996 for predicted mean corpuscular volume and 0.992 for predicted mean corpuscular hemoglobin, respectively.ConclusionsThe established method could be an additional potentially promising tool for the preliminary screening of thalassemias in population prevention and control program. The main advantage of this method is no unwanted chemical regents compared with conventional method. Strategy for the development of this method could be of use for the other important parameters of thalassemias.

► Correlations of indicators between routine method and ATR-FTIR were evaluated.
► ROC curve was used to analyze the effectiveness of this new method.
► ATR-FTIR for the other parameters of thalassemia was discussed.