J Lab Med Qual Assur.  2010 Dec;32(2):205-210.

Evaluation of the Vacutainer Gel Plasma Tube for Common Clinical Chemistry Assays

• Seo GY
• Lee HC
• Kim YK
• Kim JH

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Plasma specimens are recently used instead of serum in clinical chemistry to improve (test result turnaround time, TAT). We evaluated the performance of lithium heparin gel plasma separating tube in comparison to existing vacutainer gel serum tube in common clinical chemistry assays.
METHODS
Total 52 subjects who had visited the health promotion center were included in the study. Lithium heparin plasma tubes and serum tubes were tested for 30 clinical chemistry items and 3 cardiac markers. Test results were analyzed by calculation of mean bias and percent difference.
RESULTS
The performance of the lithium heparin plasma tube was considered to be clinically equivalent to the serum tube for all assays except for potassium. The difference of potassium levels between lithium heparin plasma tube and the serum tube was -7.32%. Test results of some analytes including glucose, lactate dehydrogenase, total CO2 and potassium using the lithium heparin tube were significantly changed after 24 hours of storage.
CONCLUSIONS
The lithium heparin plasma tube provided acceptable results comparison to the existing serum separating tube in common clinical chemistries and can be used for reducing, TAT. However, the stability of plasma gel tubes on 24 hours of storage was unstable in some analytes, it requires attention.

Keyword

Plasma specimen; Vacutainer gel plasma tube; Serum gel separating tube

MeSH Terms

Bias (Epidemiology)
Chemistry, Clinical
Glucose
Health Promotion
Heparin
L-Lactate Dehydrogenase
Lithium
Plasma
Potassium
Glucose
Heparin
L-Lactate Dehydrogenase
Lithium
Potassium