It is estimated that a majority of all laboratory medicine errors are errors that occur during the preanalytical phase of the laboratory testing cycle. Such errors have a significant impact on patient safety, staff workload, and hospital costs.  Correctly identifying patients and avoiding specimen-labeling errors are...

Umbilical cord blood gas analysis provides objective evidence of neonatal condition at birth; a particular utility of the test is to identify those babies who have suffered significant oxygen deficit prior to delivery. Traditional obstetric practice is to clamp the umbilical cord within seconds of delivery but some...

In health the partial pressure of oxygen (pO₂) in arterial blood is maintained between 10.6 and 13.3 kPa (80-100 mmHg). Hypoxemia (reduced arterial pO₂) is usually a signal of significant respiratory or cardiac disease and respiratory failure is defined as arterial blood pO₂ < 8 kPa ( So when arterial blood gas...

There are few medical diagnoses that depend solely on the result of a single blood test, but diabetes mellitus, which is defined by concentration of circulating glucose, is one that does. Quite apart from its long established role in diagnosis as well as life-long monitoring of diabetes, measurement of circulating...

Reprinted from AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CRITICAL CARE, November 2006, Volume 15, No 6, 595-599 Hudson TL, Dukes SF, Reilly K. Use of local anesthesia for arterial puncture. Copyright with permission from American Journal of Critical Care BACKGROUND Except for intravenous therapy, arterial access is the most common...

As with any aspect of healthcare, laboratory testing is prone to errors that may have a negative impact on outcome for patients. The focus for laboratory management in this regard has not unnaturally been the analytical process with great emphasis placed on the value of internal and external quality control programs...

Arterial blood is the standard sample for blood gas analysis but arterial blood sampling is more painful and hazardous to the patient. Such is the relative convenience and safety of sampling venous blood that several studies have sought to investigate the validity of its use as a substitute for arterial blood.  The...

Reprinted and translated by permission of Danske Bioanalytikere, dbio from "Fra hæl eller håndryg", by Jytte Kristensen, dbio, vol no 4, 2007, pp 8-11. Copyright 2007 by dbio. Translated by Radiometer Medical ApS. Norwegian and Danish biomedical laboratory scientists disagree on best practice when collecting blood...

Accurate blood gas results depend on a homogeneous blood sample and the necessity for thorough mixing of samples is reflected in written standard operating procedures for blood gas analysis. The results of a recent study suggest, however, that manual mixing techniques routinely used may be inadequate in achieving a...

Arterial blood is the standard sample for measurement of pH, pCO₂ and pO₂, but collection of arterial blood can be painful. Furthermore, it is a procedure associated with some risk to the patient and can therefore only be performed by trained, medically qualified staff.   Capillary blood collection by finger or...