Specimen requirement is 3 mL of whole blood in a heparinized syringe.If the specimen cannot be immediately sent to the laboratory it should be placed in wet ice. The metabolic decrease in pO 2 and increase in pCO 2 in the presence of an elevated WBC count will be even more pronounced in blood gas specimens transported at room temperature. When the hemoglobin concentration is decreased, the capacity for buffering oxygen may be reduced. If it’s higher than that range, your blood is considered too basic (alkaline). If it’s lower than that, your blood is considered too acidic. The pH of blood is usually between 7.35 and 7.45. Accordingly, blood gas syringes should now be transported to the laboratory at room temperature.ĪBG specimens collected from patients with severe anemia or leukocytosis should be analyzed as quickly as possible. pH: This measures the balance of acids and bases in your blood, known as your blood pH level. The changes in pO 2 in plastic syringes stored at room temperature are the same order of magnitude as glass syringes stored in ice.īecause of these findings, the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute now recommends that arterial specimens be collected in a plastic syringe, left at room temperature and analyzed within 30 minutes. We, therefore, made an evaluation of the performance of i-STAT using a disposable cartridge EG7 + which is capable of measuring pH, pO2, pCO2 (blood gas), Sodium, Potassium (Electrolytes). In contrast, pO 2 does not change significantly when whole-blood samples collected in a plastic syringe are stored at ambient temperature for 30 minutes. This increase occurs due to the combination of a decreased metabolic utilization of oxygen and a rise in the rate of diffusive transfer of oxygen into blood secondary to the decreased temperature. The pO 2 of blood collected in glass syringes and stored on ice also increases, but to a much lesser extent. The mean change is 8.4 mmHg at 30 minutes, 9.6 at 60 minutes and 10.3 at 90 minutes when the initial pO 2 is approximately 100 mm Hg. Specimens collected in plastic syringes and stored on ice actually increase the rate of rise in pO 2 compared to plastic syringes stored at ambient temperature. When this happens, the organs and tissues in your body don’t get enough oxygen to function properly. Therefore, this change in practice necessitated a re-evaluation of the storage time and conditions on oxygen and carbon dioxide results. Hypoxemia is when you have low levels of oxygen in your blood. Plastic syringes are significantly more permeable than glass to both oxygen and carbon dioxide. Storage in an ice slurry decreased the metabolic rate to approximately 10 % of the value at 37 degrees centigrade.ĭuring the past few years, plastic syringes have largely replaced glass syringes because of concerns about safety, waste disposal, and cost. Glass syringes provided an impermeable barrier to atmospheric gas pressures, but there was still a progressive decrease in pO 2 and increase in pCO 2 caused by metabolism of the leukocytes and erythrocytes over time. Traditionally, arterial specimens were collected in glass syringes and placed in an ice slurry for transportation to the laboratory.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |