The samples derived from horses admitted to a university teaching hospital requiring arterial or venous blood gas analysis as part of their routine clinical management.
One hundred equine blood samples were run immediately, consecutively and in randomized order on three blood gas analysers.
Results of variables common to all three analysers were tested for agreement and compared with guidelines used in human medicine.
These require 80% of results from the test analyser to fall within a defined range or percentage of results from the comparator devices to achieve acceptability.
Additionally, 21 samples were run twice in quick succession on the EPOC analyser to investigate precision.
Agreement targets were not met for haematocrit, haemoglobin and base excess for either i-STAT or ABL77 analysers.
EPOC precision targets were not met for partial pressure of carbon dioxide, ionized calcium, haematocrit and haemoglobin.
Overall comparative performance of the EPOC was good to excellent for pH, oxygen tension, potassium, bicarbonate and oxygen saturation of haemoglobin, but marginal to poor for other parameters.
The EPOC may be useful in performing analysis of equine whole blood, but trend analysis of carbon dioxide tension, ionized calcium, haematocrit and haemoglobin should be interpreted with caution.
The EPOC should not be used interchangeably with other blood gas analysers.
Source: Bardell, D., West, E. and Senior, J. M. (2016), Evaluation of a new handheld point-of-care blood gas analyser using 100 equine blood samples. Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia. doi: 10.1111/vaa.12392
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