A1C for Diabetes Diagnosis
The A1C assay continues to gain ground as a potential replacement test for the diagnosis of diabetes after an international committee of experts recommended the test at the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions this weekend.
The assay is traditionally used to monitor how well a patient is controlling his diabetes, but may be a more stable and reliable diagnostic tool than the fasting plasma glucose test or the oral glucose tolerance tests usually used. The international committee was assembled by the American Diabetes Association, International Diabetes Federation and European Association for the Study of Diabetes, but those organizations have not officially endorsed the report, according to this article on CNN.com.