Anemia is the collection of signs and symptoms of reduced oxygen delivery to tissues as a result of a reduction in the number of red cells and/or reduction in blood concentration of hemoglobin. In clinical practice, anemia is diagnosed if the blood concentration of hemoglobin (ctHb) is abnormally low.  The World...

The collection of arterial specimens with glass syringes and immediate storage in iced water was the accepted industry standard for many years. Practice has changed over the past several years to blood gas sample collection in plastic syringes, likely due to the cost, safety and convenience of plastic. This change ...

Test results are commonly interpreted against population-based reference (normal) intervals, which should be provided on every laboratory report, irrespective of whether the test has been done as point-of-care testing or in a clinical laboratory. Reference intervals are difficult to generate properly if international ...

About half of all newborn infants born at term develop jaundice during their first days of life, and the lower the gestational age the more frequent the jaundice is. Newborns develop hyperbilirubinemia because of a large bilirubin production, low hepatic excretion and enterohepatic recirculation. At birth the newborn ...

Biochemical and hematological analyses are done in laboratories, clinics, general practices and in point-of-care settings such as ITU.  Generally, numerical test results are generated.   Test results vary in individuals over time due to preanalytical variation, analytical imprecision and biological variation. The...

To assess anemia and reduced oxygen-carrying capacity, a measurement of hematocrit and/or hemoglobin is performed. Whether hemoglobin or hematocrit is preferred depends on different needs and is often determined by tradition.  Both hematocrit and hemoglobin are important hematology parameters for diagnosing...

50-75 % of all newborns develop jaundice during their first week of life [1,2,3]. The decision behind which treatment is necessary and when it should be initiated is based upon a measurement of the concentration of total bilirubin (ctBil) in serum, plasma or whole blood.  It is therefore obvious that it is important...

Blood gas analysis at the point of care plays an important role during and after an open-heart surgery. acutecaretesting.org recently talked to Prof. Knut Kleesiek, MD, Director of the Institute for Laboratory and Transfusion Medicine of the Heart and Diabetes Center North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, to find out more ...

Oxygen saturation can be obtained from many different types of devices. This range of choices causes some confusion as to definitions of measured variables and their clinical interpretation. This article gives some historical background and describes the two different ways saturation can be obtained from a blood gas ...

High frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) is often used in neonatal intensive care. HFOV has been shown to decrease bronchopulmonary dysplasia [1,2,3] in preterm infants and to be very effective in the treatment of persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn when used in conjunction with inhaled nitric oxide ...