Operational evaluation of the earlobe arterialized blood collector in critically ill patients

Extreme Physiology & Medicine

Antonio Artigas¹  Thais Russomano⁴  Simon Evetts²  Alexandre Frechette²  Joan Carles Oliva¹  Gemma Gom๠ Gisela Gili¹  Jordi Masip¹  Sergi Vaquer³ 

[1] Critical Care Centre, Corporació Sanitària Universitària Parc Taulí, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, CIBER Enfermedades Respiratorias, Sabadell, Spain;Science, Technology & Engineering, Wyle GmbH, Cologne, Germany;Servei de Medicina Intensiva, Corporació Sanitària Parc Taulí, Parc Taulí 1, Sabadell, 08208, Spain;CHAPS, King’s College, London, UK

关键词: Mechanical ventilation;    Intensive care medicine;    Capillary blood;    Space medicine;    Acute respiratory failure;   

Others  :  1204306
DOI  :  10.1186/s13728-015-0025-x

 received in 2014-10-13, accepted in 2015-02-26,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

The new Earlobe Arterialized Blood Collector (EABC®) is a minimally invasive prototype system able to perform capillary blood collection from the earlobe (EL) with minimal training and risk. This system could improve medical emergency management in extreme environments. Consequently, a prospective validation study was designed to evaluate operational performance of the EABC® in a cohort of critically ill patients.

Methods

Arterialized capillary blood was sampled from the EL of 55 invasively ventilated patients using the EABC® following a validated procedure. Operational characteristics such as the number of cuts and cartridges required, sampling failure/success ratio, bleeding complications, storage requirements and other auxiliary aspects were recorded. Result turnaround laboratory times (TAT) were compared with published references.

Results

Blood collection was as easily performed on one earlobe as the other. Twenty-six minutes (mean 25.8; SD = 3.8) were required to obtain results, 15 min for patient preparation (mean 15.3; SD = 2.6) + 11 min for sampling and analysis (mean 11.4; SD = 2.1), which is similar to published hospital reference laboratory TAT. The average number of cartridges required was 1.3 (1–3; mode = 1) with the mean number of cut attempts being 1.2 (1–4; mode = 1). Problems/difficulties occurred in 59% of cases but were mainly attributed to patient’s demographic characteristics, with only 10% attributable to the collector (superficial cut, blood leak, collector misalignment and obstructed vision). Haemostasis was quickly achieved with minimum complications. Storage of the complete sampling kit required a 300 × 300 × 300 mm box. Two 9-V batteries were used during the 2-year study period.

Conclusions

The new EABC® system concept is safe, fast and easy to use. Observed problems/difficulties are easily amendable with certain design modifications. Definitive versions of the prototype have the potential for significant benefits for isolated and extreme environments in medicine.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Vaquer et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

【 图 表 】

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