The process of blood gas and pH measurement involves preheating the arterial blood sample to normal body temperature (37 °C) prior to measurement of pH, partial pressure of oxygen (pO₂) and partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO₂). This ensures that results reflect in vivo temperature condition. A minority of...

The significance of good practice during the preanalytical phase of clinical laboratory investigation cannot be overemphasized. One aspect of the preanalytical phase – the transport of samples – is considered here; in particular the transport of samples via pneumatic tube systems. This is an update of a previous...

Cirrhosis of the liver is associated with increased respiration (hyperventilation) and consequent hypocapnic respiratory alkalosis. The severity of this acid-base disturbance correlates with severity of cirrhosis as well as severity of the abnormal hyperdynamic systemic circulation that characterizes this irreversible ...

Health demands that the pH of blood is maintained within a narrow range (7.35-7.45). Monitoring this physiological imperative and detection of so-called acid-base disturbance, in which blood pH is either increased or decreased, is one of the principal clinical utilities of blood gas analysis.  Metabolic acidosis – one ...

Blood gas analyzers often have an incorporated CO-oximeter that allows accurate determination of carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) and methemoglobin (MetHb) from the arterial blood sample submitted for routine blood gas analysis. For patients with suspected acute pulmonary embolism (PE), arterial blood gas analysis is often...

Arterial blood gas analysis provides the means for assessment of two related physiological functions that are disturbed in a wide range of medical conditions.  The first is the facility of the lungs to simultaneously add inspired oxygen to blood and remove carbon dioxide from blood, prior to excretion in expired air...

Lactic acidosis, the most common kind of metabolic acidosis, is characterized by reduced blood pH (usually <7.25) in association with marked increase in blood lactate (usually >5.0 mmol/L). Lactic acidosis has many possible causes but two broad etiological classes have been defined: type A (hypoxic) lactic acidosis and ...

http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2014/10/16/09031936.00039214.full.pdf+html. Accessed Oct 2014. Arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis is clinically useful because it allows assessment of two vital interrelated physiological functions: pulmonary gas exchange and maintenance of blood pH (acid-base homeostasis)....

This short review aims to put the diagnostic options provided by state-of-the-art POCT  technology into perspective with the clinical challenges faced by physicians treating patients presenting with acute dyspnea.  Natriuretic peptides, hemoglobin, D-dimers and venous blood gases play a key role in the early...

Sampling capillary blood from the fetal scalp during labor of pregnancy, in order to determine its pH, was introduced to obstetric care in the late 1960s.  Despite current skepticism surrounding its utility, most notably in the US, fetal-scalp blood sampling (FSBS) is still considered a useful fetal monitoring test...