INTRODUCTION: There was a lot of the scientific and public discussion during the Olympic Winter Games in Turin 2006 on upper haemoglobin (Hb) and hematocrit (Hct) levels with respect of reducing the risk of blood manipulation. In this context the focus is on individual blood profiles in order to characterise intraindividual variabilities. Naturally the quality of measuring hematological parameters needs to be very high. The present study, in cooperation with DSV, FIS and NADA, evaluated the measurement precision of Hb and Hc in field. METHOD: 34 Cross-Country skiers on top international level from the German, Swedish and French national teams served as subjects during their training camps at various locations in the Alps in 2006. A sum of 10 venous blood samples of each athlete was taken after defined interventions. The samples were immediately analyzed, in order to quantify the inter- and intra-assay variability different analytical Systems from different companies were used: Two Sysmex KX 21N units, one Sysmex R500 (Sysmex Germany), one OSM3 (Radiometer, Copenhagen, Denmark) one HemoCue Hemoglobin 201 (HemoCue Germany) and a HK Centrifuge. RESULTS: Significant statistical differences between non-identical devices were found. The correlations reached r = .87; measurement errors between 15% to 25% were found (Fig. 1 shows Hb values for the same sample). Correlations between identical machines were very high and significant (r > 0.95). But also for duplicate determination a difference of 0.6 g/dl Hb could be found. Similar results for Hct were obtained. DISCUSSION: The methodological variability between different measurement Systems is not tolerable for a decision to ban or not to ban athletes from competitions. Measurements with identical machines show a high correlation but also can lead to misinterpretation at the borderline. CONCLUSION: The data collected in this study show the exigence to decide on a highly standardized method for the determination of Hb and HK concentration and to consider different statistical approaches at the boundary values.
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