L’interferenza dell’emolisi sulla misura dell’insulina

AUTHORS

ABSTRACT

Analytical interference of hemolysis on serum insulin measurement

Insulin is a polypeptide hormone, secretedfrom pancreatic β-cell, involved in the regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism. Insulin measurement is a useful toolto identify some clinical conditions, such as fasting hypoglycemia, some types of diabetes, the presence of insulinresistance. An important pre-analytical aspect that influences the determination of insulin serum concentration is thepresence of hemolysis. In fact, it is well known that insulin is degraded by a protease released by red blood cells afterhemolysis. The aim of this study is to evaluate the interference of hemolysis on insulin measurements performed bya chemiluminescence method. To study the effect of hemolysis on insulin degradation, we added increasingconcentrations of red blood cell hemolysate to a serum pool with known insulin concentration. The reduction of insulinlevels was affected by the degree of hemolysis, by the time elapsed before the assay and by the temperature ofsamples storage. Our results show that insulin values do not decrease significantly (<10%) when hemolysis is <2.0g/L of free hemoglobin (corresponding to H-index=200) if samples are maintained at low temperatures (i.e. in an ice-water slurry) until the assay is performed.

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