Glycated hemoglobins (HbAiiHbAic) serves as an indicator of diabetic control and hence the effectiveness of treatment. Studies on the methods available have shown that factors such as hemoglobin concentration and the presence of high lipid in the blood may affect the validity of the results. Atypical hemoglobins such as HbS and HbC have also been shown to affect the determination of glycated hemoglobins. However no study has been done on the effect of HbE , the hemoglobin variant that is present in the South East Asian population. Thus this study was unde~ to determine the effect of HbE on fu~ - determination ofHbAI/HbAlc by 4 commercial kits and also to determine its prevalence among diabetic subjects in Kelantan. Blood was taken from 58 normal subjects (23 males and 35 females) and 63 HbE (31 males and 32 females) heterozygous subjects. All subjects ,bad no history of diabetes mellitus. They had random blood glucose values < 7.8 mmolll and hemoglobin (hb) values between 7 to 24 g/dl. The EDTA plasma collected were tested for HbAI and HbAlc using 4 commercial kits i.e. Eagles Diagnostics, Boehringer Mannheim (BM), Diastat and Ames DCA 2000. The tests were done within one week and samples were stored at 4 oc before analysis. Results showed that the mean± s.d HbAI levels in normal vs HbE heterozygous subjects using Eagles Diagnostics, Boehringer Mannheim and Diastat kits were 6.9 ± 1.1% vs 9.5± 3.9%; 7.1 ± 1.2% vs 14.8 ± 9.3% and 8.3 ± 3.8% vs 13.5 ± 10.8% respectively. All were significantly different (p