The red blood cell (RBC) lifespan is an important physiological indicator of clear significance in clinical research, used for the differential diagnosis of various diseases such as anemia, compensatory phase hemolysis, and polycythemia. The ¹⁵N-glycine labeling technique is the gold standard method for determining RBC lifespans. However, the usefulness of this technique in clinical settings is seriously hindered by the several weeks required to complete the analyses. Levitt's CO breath test is another reliable technique for determining RBC lifespans, with a simpler protocol giving much faster results, making it more useful in clinical applications. We compared the CO breath test and ¹⁵N-glycine labeling technique for measuring the human RBC lifespan. We investigated human RBC lifespans where each subject undertook both the ¹⁵N-glycine labeling technique and the CO breath test. The correlation between the results from these two methods was analyzed. Eight of the ten subjects successfully completed the study. The RBC lifespan values obtained by Levitt's CO breath test were lower than those obtained by the ¹⁵N-glycine labeling technique. The RBC lifespan values determined from the ¹⁵N-glycine labeling technique and the CO breath test were significantly correlated, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of R = 0.98 (p < 0.05), while the R² of the linear regression equation was 0.96. The CO breath test exhibits as good performance as the ¹⁵N-glycine labelling technique in distinguishing healthy subjects from subjects with hemolysis. The result suggests that the CO breath test is a reliable method for quickly determining human RBC lifespans in clinical applications.

中文翻译：

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Levitt 的 CO 呼气试验和 15N-甘氨酸标记技术测量人类红细胞寿命的比较

红细胞寿命是临床研究中具有明确意义的重要生理指标，用于贫血、代偿期溶血、红细胞增多症等多种疾病的鉴别诊断。的¹⁵的N-甘氨酸标记技术是用于确定RBC寿命的金标准方法。然而，这种技术在临床环境中的实用性受到完成分析所需的数周时间的严重阻碍。Levitt 的 CO 呼气测试是另一种确定 RBC 寿命的可靠技术，其更简单的方案可提供更快的结果，使其在临床应用中更有用。我们比较了 CO 呼气测试和¹⁵用于测量人类红细胞寿命的 N-甘氨酸标记技术。我们调查了人类 RBC 寿命，其中每个受试者都进行了¹⁵ N-甘氨酸标记技术和 CO 呼气测试。分析了这两种方法的结果之间的相关性。十名受试者中有八名成功完成了研究。通过 Levitt 的 CO 呼气试验获得的 RBC 寿命值低于通过¹⁵ N-甘氨酸标记技术获得的值。由¹⁵ N-甘氨酸标记技术和 CO 呼气试验确定的 RBC 寿命值显着相关，Pearson 相关系数为 R = 0.98 ( p  < 0.05)，而 R ²线性回归方程的值为 0.96。CO 呼气试验在区分健康受试者和溶血受试者方面表现出与¹⁵ N-甘氨酸标记技术一样好的性能。结果表明，CO 呼气试验是一种在临床应用中快速确定人类红细胞寿命的可靠方法。