In response to a request from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) to help promote the use of estimated average glucose (eAG) values in diabetes management, AACC’s Board of Directors has issued a position statement advising that for now, labs should report eAG along with percentage HbA1c. However, AACC’s leadership urges labs to continue reporting HbA1c results until additional studies provide sufficient support to justify sole reporting of eAG. In June 2008, ADA called for labs to start reporting eAG, a value calculated from percentage HbA1c but reported in the same units as glucose, in an effort to make it easier for patients to understand control of their disease.

ADA’s promotion of eAG is based on results from the A1c-Derived Average Glucose (ADAG) Study Group, which the organization backed (Diabetes Care 2008;31:1473–78). The 507-subject study examined the relationship between HbA1c and eAG and concluded that HbA1c could safely be reported as eAG in most diabetic patients (CLN October 2008). The authors of the study said that interpretation of HbA1c is analogous to reporting serum creatinine as eGFR, and suggested that eAG would be a “more useful index of chronic glycemia.”