Laboratory methods for the detection of hemoglobinopathies in the community hospital.

In the 1990s, community hospital laboratories can expect to evaluate anemia in patients from increasingly diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, which will require the implementation of increasingly sophisticated laboratory methods for the detection of hemoglobinopathies. This article reviews the standard methods of alkaline and acid hemoglobin identification, and the methods of hemoglobin quantitation and ancillary tests are presented. Finally, a protocol is proposed that will allow the community hospital laboratory physicians to diagnose the majority of clinically significant hemoglobinopathies efficiently and accurately.