Welcome to HbA1c.nu - a website about HbA1c for patients and healthcare professionals
HbA1c.nu is a website specially designed to inform you about HbA1c and the new unit of measurement. A number of professional organisations and patient groups have been involved in the production of this website and are named below, together with links to their respective websites.
Background
HbA1c is a glycosylated form of haemoglobin (ie haemoglobin to which circulating glucose has been bound) and functions as a long-term marker of blood glucose levels. HbA1c is the single most important parameter for following up diabetes treatment. There is a strong association between the level of HbA1c and the risk of diabetes complications.
Work to create an international calibrator for HbA1c has been going on for many years. This goal has now been achieved and there is a global consensus to use this calibrator for all HbA1c methods. To help in this unifying process a new unit (IFCC unit in mmol/mol) has also been agreed upon. In other words, all HbA1c methods will give the same result in the same units no matter where in the world the analysis is performed. This new way of calibrating HbA1c and the new IFCC unit was introduced in Sweden on September 1 2010.
Converting IFCC and Mono S units
To convert HbA1c results from the present Swedish unit for HbA1c (MonoS in percent) to the new international unit (IFCC in mmol/mol) or vice versa simply fill in the HbA1c result.Converting NGSP (DCCT), IFCC and Mono S units
The majority of countries in the world have used the NGSP (DCCT) calibration and thus there are many research papers concerning diabetes where HbA1c has been reported in these units. The NGSP unit for HbA1c is expressed as percent and is approximately one percent-unit higher than HbA1c expressed as the Swedish Mono S percent-unit.Conversion factor for relative change in HbA1c
The above formulae cannot be used to convert the relative change in HbA1c (ie the difference observed between sampling occasions) from one unit to another because zero in one unit is not zero in another. This relative change in HbA1c is of particular interest for interpreting research studies since this parameter is often reported.
Important information
Regarding the measurement of HbA1c with the DCA Vantage instrument from Siemens. The instrument reports patient results both as Mono S percent and as IFCC mmol/mol. The conversion calculation programmed in the instrument differs somewhat from the conversion calculation used in this website. For more information contact Semens Help Desk. Tel 0200-87 08 77. More information (in Swedish).Involved organisations
