Abstract
Estimating the lifespan of erythrocytes is useful for the differential diagnosis of anemia. However, measuring the lifespan of erythrocytes was very difficult; therefore, it was seldom measured. Erythrocyte creatine (EC) decreases reflecting erythrocyte age. We developed a method to obtain mean erythrocyte age (M(RBC)) from EC.We reanalyzed the previously published data from 21 patients with hemolytic anemia, which included EC and the half-life of (51)Cr.M(RBC) and log(e) EC showed excellent significant linearity (r = -0.9475, p < 0.001), proving that it could be treated as a mono-exponential relationship within the studied range (EC: 1.45 - 11.76 μmol/g Hb). We established an equation to obtain M(RBC) (days) from EC (μmol/g Hb): M(RBC) = -22.84log(e) EC + 65.83.This equation allowed calculation of M(RBC) based on EC which has practical applications such as the diagnosis of anemia.