Thrombin-Accelerated Quick Clotting Serum Tubes: An Evaluation with 22 Common Biochemical Analytes

Abstract

Clot activator serum tubes have significantly improved turnaround times for result reporting compared to plain tubes. With increasing workload and service performance expectations confronting clinical laboratories with high-volume testing and with particular emphasis on critical analytes, attention has focussed on preanalytical variables that can be improved. We carried out a field study on the test performance of BD vacutainer rapid serum tubes (RSTs) compared to current institutional issued BD vacutainer serum separator tubes (SSTs) in its test result comparability, clotting time, and stability on serum storage. Data from the study population (n = 160) of patients attending outpatient clinics and healthy subjects showed that results for renal, liver, lipids, cardiac, thyroid, and prostate biochemical markers were comparable between RSTs and SSTs. Clotting times of the RSTs were verified to be quick with a median time of 2.05 min. Analyte stability on serum storage at 4°C showed no statistically significant deterioration except for bicarbonate, electrolytes, and albumin over a period of 4 days. In conclusion, RSTs offered savings in the time required for the clotting process of serum specimens. This should translate to further trimming of the whole process from blood collection to result reporting without too much sacrifice on test accuracy and performance compared to the current widely used SSTs in most clinical laboratories.

Evaluation of the BD Vacutainer® RST blood collection tube for routine chemistry analytes: clinical significance of differences and stability study

“…Similarities and differences in the concentration of tested analytes measured in RST have been reported previously ( 7 , 12 , 18 ). In the study of Ng and Yeo ( 7 ), no differences in the concentrations of test analytes were observed, while study Dimeski et al . ( 12 ) shows the difference in LD activity.…”

“…An important component for a laboratory results quality is specimen quality and the time required to obtain a suitable specimen (serum/plasma) ( 7 ). Improvement in the turn-around-time (TAT) is very important to clinicians ( 8 ).…”

Comparison of the SST ™ II with RST tubes for biochemistry parameters in emergency laboratory

“…To avoid the clotting time, a plasma specimen may be used for clinical chemistry analyses. But plasma is not an adequate specimen for some clinical tests, such as potassium, lactate dehydrogenase, and cardiac markers [6][7][8]. Due to the limitations of plasma samples, many laboratories prefer to use a serum specimen for clinical biochemistry tests.…”

“…Due to the limitations of plasma samples, many laboratories prefer to use a serum specimen for clinical biochemistry tests. Clot activator serum tubes are known to have a significantly reduced time for reporting results in comparison with gel separator tubes [6,9]. RST tubes do not require a waiting period for clotting, thereby decreasing TAT by nearly 30 minutes.…”

Comparison of Abbott Architect high-sensitivity troponin I in Rapid Serum Tubes and plasma

“…The faster clotting time offers potential improvement to turnaround times for serum samples. RST tubes have therefore, previously been evaluated using various cardiac troponin (cTn) assays (including contemporary cTnI assays [1,2] and cTnT assays [3][4][5], showing generally good agreement with serum [4,5] and plasma specimens [1][2][3]. We wanted to compare cTnI results in RST and plasma (a common specimen for stat testing) using a new high-sensitivity cTnI assay.…”