Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Accuracy of a veterinary hematocrit meter for dog and cat blood tests
By Thevelein, Britt A L et al.·Published in Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association·2021·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Effects of potential confounding variables on accuracy of a commercially available veterinary point-of-care hematocrit meter in the evaluation of blood samples from dogs and cats.
Plain-English summary
A study looked at how accurate a portable blood test meter is for measuring blood values in dogs and cats. The researchers compared results from this meter with those from a standard laboratory analyzer using blood samples from 86 dogs and 18 cats. They found that while the portable meter generally provided similar results, there were some differences that could be significant for diagnosing health issues. The meter struggled with certain samples, particularly those with very low blood cell counts. Overall, the portable meter can be useful, but pet owners should be aware that results may vary and confirmatory lab tests might still be needed.
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Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To assess the agreement in measurements of Hct values and hemoglobin (Hgb) concentrations in blood samples from dogs and cats between a commercially available veterinary point-of-care (POC) Hct meter and a laboratory-based (LAB) analyzer and to determine the effects of various conditions (ie, lipemia, hyperbilirubinemia, hemolysis, autoagglutination, and reticulocytosis) on the accuracy of the POC meter. SAMPLES: Blood samples from 86 dogs and 18 cats. PROCEDURES: Blood samples were run in duplicate on the POC meter, which reported Hgb concentration, measured via optical reflectance, and a calculated Hct value. The POC meter results were compared with results from a LAB analyzer. Blood samples with grossly visible lipemia, icterus, hemolysis, and autoagglutination were noted. RESULTS: Mean ± SD values for LAB Hct were 33.9 ± 15.73% (range, 3.9% to 75.8%), and for LAB Hgb were 11.2 ± 5.4 g/dL (range, 1 to 24.6 g/dL). Mean bias between POC Hct and LAB Hct values was -1.8% with 95% limits of agreement (LOAs) of -11.1% to 7.5% and between POC Hgb and LAB Hgb concentrations was -0.5 g/dL with 95% LOAs of -3.8 to 2.8 g/dL. There was no influence of lipemia (14 samples), icterus (23), autoagglutination (14), hemolysis (12), or high reticulocyte count (15) on the accuracy of the POC meter. The POC meter was unable to read 13 blood samples; 9 had a LAB Hct ≤ 12%, and 4 had a LAB Hct concentration between 13% and 17%. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Overall, measurements from the POC meter had good agreement with those from the LAB analyzer. However, LOAs were fairly wide, indicating that there may be clinically important differences between measurements from the POC meter and LAB analyzer.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34125615/