Evaluation of the Bio-Rad VARIANT II HbA2/HbA1C Dual Program for measurement of hemoglobin concentrations and detection of variants.

In this work data obtained on the VARIANT II hemoglobin analyzer using the Dual Kit elution system were compared to those obtained with the beta-Thalassemia Short Program. Since many laboratories still use an earlier model of the hemoglobin analyzer, the Variant 1, these data were also compared to those obtained with the latter instrument. Our study is divided into two parts. The first is an evaluation of the precision of the VARIANT II for determining the levels of hemoglobin (Hb)A2 and Hb F. This was carried out for normal subjects, thalassemic patients and patients with HbS. The second part concerns the potential of this instrument in the presumptive identification of Hb variants.