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Assessing pediatric trauma specimen integrity
Ruth A Bush1, Teresa Mueller, Beverly Sumwalt
1Research Department (MC 5074), Rady Children's Hospital San Diego, 3020 Children's Way, San Diego, CA 92123, USA. rbush@rchsd.org
Objective:
This study investigated the quality of trauma specimens by comparing line draws to venipuncture.
Design:
The draw type (line or venipuncture); container type (Vacutainer or Microtainer); and suitability for processing (processed/hemolyzed/clotted) of routinely collected trauma specimens was analyzed.
Setting:
The clinical laboratory of a Level I Pediatric Trauma Center.
Main Outcome Measure:
Hemolyzed trauma specimens were analyzed according to method of collection, collector, and type of container to identify issues resulting in unusable samples.
Results:
The data shows that for 13% of all draws, portions of the results were affected by hemolysis. Sixteen percent of line draws and 6% of venipunctures were hemolyzed (p = 0.04). There was no statistical association with who collected the sample (p = 0.07) or type of container (p = 1.00).
Conclusion:
Based on this sample of data, the laboratory recommends that, whenever possible, venipunctures be performed for laboratory testing of blood specimens to improve trauma specimen integrity.
