Mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration

[citation needed] A low MCHC can be interpreted as identifying decreased production of hemoglobin.

MCHC can be normal even when hemoglobin production is decreased (such as in iron deficiency) due to a calculation artifact.

[citation needed] Because of the way automated analysers count blood cells, a very high MCHC (greater than about 370 g/L) may indicate the blood is from someone with a cold agglutinin, or there may be some other problem resulting in one or more artifactual results affecting the MCHC.

[citation needed] For example, for some patients with cold agglutinins, when their blood gets colder than 37 °C, the red cells will clump together.

As a result, the analyzer may incorrectly report a low number of very dense red blood cells.