Point-of-care Hb measurement in pooled capillary blood by a portable autoanalyser: comparison with venous blood Hb measured by reference methods in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.

Population-based surveys commonly use point-of-care (POC) methods with capillary blood samples for estimating Hb concentrations; these estimates need to be validated by comparison with reference methods using venous blood. In a cross-sectional study in 748 participants (17-86 years, 708 women, Hb: 5·1 to 18·2 g/dl) from Hyderabad, India, we validated Hb measured from a pooled capillary blood sample by a POC autoanalyser (Horiba ABX Micros 60OT, ) by comparison with venous blood Hb measured by two reference methods: POC autoanalyser () and cyanmethemoglobin method (). These comparisons also allowed estimation of blood sample-related and equipment-related differences in the Hb estimates. We also conducted a longitudinal study in 426 participants (17-21 years) to measure differences in the Hb response to iron folate (IFA) treatment by the capillary blood POC method compared with the reference methods. In the cross-sectional study, Bland-Altman analyses showed trivial differences between source of blood ( and ; mean difference, limits of agreement: 0·1, -0·8 to 1·0 g/dl) and between analytical methods ( and ; mean difference, limits of agreement: < 0·1, -1·8 to 1·8 g/dl). Cross-sectional anaemia prevalence estimated using did not differ significantly from or . In the longitudinal study, the Hb increment in response to IFA intervention was not different when using (1·6 ± 1·7 g/dl) compared with (1·7 ± 1·7 g/dl) and (1·7 ± 1·7 g/dl). The pooled capillary blood-autoanalyzer method () offers a practical and accurate way forward for POC screening of anaemia.