Comparative Analysis of Two Methodologies for Determination of HDL Cholesterol

Objective: The present work is an analytical and prospective study on the determination of HDL-cholesterol through two different methodologies, precipitation and direct method, in a group of 51 patients attended by a school laboratory. Method: For the determination of these analytes, two methodologies were used: direct method and precipitation method, because it has been observed experimentally discrepancies in the values referring to the results of determination of cholesterol-HDL when comparing the results from the two methodologies, which can lead to a failed therapy. Result: Of the 51 samples analyzed, 38 (74.5%) were female and 13 (25.5%) were male. The results were divided into groups by age group, in order to verify a possible difference between the groups, the age range was 11 to 88 years. When the HDL-cholesterol values obtained by the two different methods were evaluated, there was a significant difference (p <0.0001) in the HDL-cholesterol values between the direct method (56.06 ± 1.653) and the precipitation method (39.35 ± 1.193). Conclusion: For HDL values, it was possible to verify that there is a significant increase between the HDL-cholesterol values obtained by the direct method in relation to the method by precipitation independent of variables such as sex and age group. This way further studies are needed in order to find a pattern of variation between the methods and allow the adequacy of the results through a correction factor or even new reference values.