Usefulness of glycated albumin assay for diabetes monitoring.

In this issue of Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, Kohzuma and colleagues describe a method for measuring glycated amino acids in albumin from serum samples. This method may be useful as an alternative to hemoglobin A1c in monitoring patients with diabetes in certain situations, e.g., diabetes patients with chronic renal failure. Because there are drawbacks of each analyte for measuring glycemic status, it is important to be able to clearly define what is being measured and determine what factors might interfere with each type of measurement. Once the utility of glycated albumin measurement is clearly defined and its use is accepted for diabetes care, standardization may be warranted.