What does it mean when a blood sample is hemolyzed?
What does it mean when a blood sample is hemolyzed?
The term hemolysis designates the pathological process of breakdown of red blood cells in blood, which is typically accompanied by varying degrees of red tinge in serum or plasma once the whole blood specimen has been centrifuged.
What can cause a specimen to hemolyzed?
Hemolysis resulting from phlebotomy may be caused by incorrect needle size, improper tube mixing, incorrect filling of tubes, excessive suction, prolonged tourniquet, and difficult collection.
Does hemolyzed sample affect glucose?
Dilutional effect caused by the leakage of intracellular components into the surrounding fluid especially in severe hemolysis may cause lower values for glucose, sodium and calcium (14,19).
What does the presence of hemolysis mean?
Hemolysis refers to the destruction of red blood cells (RBCs). Typically, RBCs can live for up to 120 days before the body naturally destroys them. However, certain conditions and medications may cause them to break down quicker than usual. RBCs, or erythrocytes, are one of the main components of blood.
Why is hemolyzed sample not accepted?
Serum/plasma samples submitted for potassium measurement are quite frequently rejected for analysis because they show the telltale signal of hemolysis, i.e. a reddish discoloration due to the presence of hemoglobin.
Can hemolyzed blood be tested?
Hemolysis may also be due to pathological conditions, such as immune reactions, infections, medications, toxins and poisons, and therapeutic procedures. Frequently, laboratory testing can still be performed on a hemolyzed sample.
How do you prevent a hemolyzed blood sample?
Best Practices to Prevent Hemolysis
- Use the correct needle size for blood collection (20-22 gauge).
- Avoid using butterfly needles, unless specifically requested by patient.
- Warm up the venipuncture site to increase blood flow.
- Allow disinfectant on venipuncture site to dry completely.
What tests are affected by hemolyzed blood?
It falsely decreases values such as RBC’s, HCT, and aPTT. It can also falsely elevate potassium, ammonia, magnesium, phosphorus, AST, ALT, LDH and PT.
What is the most common cause of hemolysis?
One cause of hemolysis is the action of hemolysins, toxins that are produced by certain pathogenic bacteria or fungi. Another cause is intense physical exercise. Hemolysins damage the red blood cell’s cytoplasmic membrane, causing lysis and eventually cell death….
| Hemolysis | |
|---|---|
| Causes | Osmosis |
How does hemolyzed specimen affects the test result?
Hemolysis may falsely increase the following analytes: AST, alanine transaminase (ALT), LDH, total bilirubin, glucose, calcium, phosphorus, total protein, albumin, magnesium, amylase, lipase, creatine kinase (CK), iron, hemoglobin, and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC).
Are hemolyzed specimens acceptable?
(6) They concluded that testing hemolyzed samples and reporting results for BUN, creatinine, amylase, and lipase was acceptable while testing and reporting phosphorus, sodium, potassium, total protein and LDH provided results that were unacceptably compromised.
