Influence of Blood Handling Techniques on Lactic Acid Concentrations

Abstract

Despite the popularity of measuring blood lactic acid concentrations, many of the common variations in technique have not been evaluated. The purposes of this study were to: 1) establish the relationship between plasma and blood lactate concentrations, 2) determine the inter-analyzer reliability, and 3) assess the stability of lactate concentration in blood stored for up to one week. Blood was sampled from 26 volunteers before exercise, at 80% of estimated maximum heart rate, and 5 minutes after a treadmill run to exhaustion. Inter-machine reliability was tested between two Yellow Springs Instruments analyzers with buffer treated with a lysing agent and between two without. Blood lactate levels at all three levels could be predicted from plasma with R2 greater than .95. Correlations between duplicates on the same machine were greater than .96 for blood and .97 for plasma. In the worst cases, between duplicate differences and between machine differences were 2%. Lactate in stored blood was in some cases significantly different after 24 hours of storage. Moderate and high lactate concentrations in plasma were not significantly altered after 2 days of storage.

Effect of Storage on Measured Blood Lactate Concentration - A Research Note

“…There were three differences in methods that might have contributed to the different findings in the present study and the study of Bishop et al (2). 1) Bishop et al (2) used potassium oxalate as an anticoagulant.…”

“…Our storage methods differ slightly fiom those of Bishop et al (2). It was speculated that the differences in storage methods might be responsible for the different conclusions of Bishop et al (2) and Rose and Hill (3) regarding the effect of storage on blood lactate concentration.…”

“…This study was undertaken in order to re-assess our practice of storing blood samples for later analysis, and to compare the effects of storage to those reported by Bishop et al (2). Specifically, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of storage on the lactate concentration measured in blood samples that were preserved with an anticoagulant (EDTA) and an anti-glycolytic agent (sodium fluoride) and treated with Triton X-100 immediately after they were obtained.…”

“…It was speculated that the differences in storage methods might be responsible for the different conclusions of Bishop et al (2) and Rose and Hill (3) regarding the effect of storage on blood lactate concentration. Both methods are similar in choice of Triton X-100 as the erythrocyte-lysing agent and choice of sodium fluoride as an anti-glycolytic agent.…”

“…1) Bishop et al (2) used potassium oxalate as an anticoagulant. In the present study, EDTA was used.…”