β-Thalassemia (β-thal) and iron deficiency cause most microcytic anemias. Red cell indices and formulas have been established as simple, fast, and inexpensive in discrimination between these two hematological disorders in school children. However, whether these formulas could be applied to diagnose β-thal trait and iron deficiency in adult Thai subjects is unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the diagnostic accuracy of five red cell indices [red blood cell (RBC) counts, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (Hb) (MCH), mean corpuscular Hb concentration (MCHC), and red cell distribution width (RDW)] and nine formulas (RDW/RBC, RDW Index, Sirdah, Green and King, Mentzer, England and Fraser, Ehsani, Srivastava and Shine and Lal). Their sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive values (NPV), efficiency, and Youden's Index were analyzed in 102 β-thal trait and 64 iron deficiency adult Thai subjects. The RDW/RBC formula proved to be the most reliable index as they had 100.0% specificity and PPV and the highest efficiency (94.58%) and Youden's Index (91.18%), as well as high sensitivity (91.18%) and NPV (87.67%). Therefore, this formula could be used in initial discrimination of β-thal trait from iron deficiency in adult Thai subjects.

Ischemia modified albumin (IMA) and Protein Carbonyl (PC) have known as proteins that are modified on the similar basis of oxidative stress induced protein modification and may have diagnostic potential in acute myocardial infarction. This study aims to evaluate the ability of using IMA and PC content to diagnose Non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) and efficiency of combining these two markers. Serum from NSTEMI and healthy control were determined for serum IMA and PC content. The results showed that both of serum IMA level and PC content in NSTEMI was significantly higher than that of healthy controls. However, the PC content showed greater diagnostic performance than IMA. Combinatorial determination of serum IMA level with PC content level was enhanced test efficiency. In conclusion, our finding demonstrated that IMA and PC content can be used as a diagnostic marker for NSTEMI.