Clarity on control (American Diabetes Assn. Scientific Sessions)

The ADA plans to roll out a new method of reporting hemoglobin A1c results -- one it hopes will be easier for patients to understand.

By Amy Snow Landa, AMNews correspondent. Aug. 6, 2007.

Reports from conferences important to physicians

When you tell a patient her hemoglobin A1c result is 8%, how does she relate that number to the blood glucose levels she measures at home in units of mg/dL? Is an A1c of 8% equivalent to an average glucose of 180?

As if diabetes management isn't complicated enough, dealing with different types of blood glucose measures can make it more so.

The American Diabetes Assn. hopes that a new method of reporting A1c results will help clear up the confusion.

The ADA plans to begin encouraging physicians later this year to tell patients their A1c results in "average glucose" units that are the same units patients use in self-monitoring.

The idea is to make it easier for patients to understand their A1c results by reporting them in units that are familiar, said Richard Kahn, PhD, the ADA's chief medical and scientific officer.

It should make the physician's job easier as well, Dr. Kahn said during a news conference at the ADA's annual scientific sessions June 22-26 in Chicago.

"It's just too complicated to explain to someone what a hemoglobin of 7% means and how it relates to [his] 140, 150, 180," he said. "It's so much easier to say to someone they've got an average glucose of X."

But before rolling out its new initiative, the ADA is waiting for the final results of an international clinical trial aimed at determining whether hemoglobin A1c accurately reflects average blood glucose.

Reporting A1c results in average glucose units requires certainty about the correlation between the two numbers, explained David M. Nathan, MD, director of the Diabetes Center and the General Clinical Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.