What is it about?
Small incremental changes in fasting glucose concentration can have diagnostic consequences. Routine measurement of glucose concentration usually underestimates actual values, and processing samples under WHO criteria is usually impractical. Newer technological introductions to blood collection tubes facilitates improved quality in glucose estimation, and in pragmatic ways.
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Why is it important?
Our findings show both technological innovations assessed demonstrate higher glucose concentrations than with 'traditional' fluoride preservative tubes. This is in line with other published data. Lithium heparin samples with rapid separation offer laboratories an alternative to fluoride preserved samples, allowing consolidation of tests into fewer blood collection tubes, with the downstream efficiencies that entails.
Perspectives
This article is part of an internal process where we are re-evaluating our service delivery by using these newer products, in ways that improve the quality of results and also introduce efficiencies into service delivery, thus benefitting all parties - patient, clinician and laboratory.
Steve Coward
Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Stabilization of Plasma Glucose: The Use of Newer Technology and Pragmatic Laboratory Practice, The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine, September 2018, AACC,
DOI: 10.1373/jalm.2018.027227.
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