Apr 22, 2017 - Hospital, Horizon Health Network, Fredericton, NB, Canada. Brought to you by | Kingswood University. Authenticated. Download Date | 8/28/17 ...
Clin Chem Lab Med 2017; 55(10): 1537–1544
Alex Pupeka, Beverly Matthewsona, Erin Whitman, Rachel Fullarton and Yu Chen*
Comparison of pneumatic tube system with manual transport for routine chemistry, hematology, coagulation and blood gas tests DOI 10.1515/cclm-2016-1157 Received December 19, 2016; accepted March 6, 2017; previously published online April 22, 2017
Abstract Background: The pneumatic tube system (PTS) is commonly used in modern clinical laboratories to provide quick specimen delivery. However, its impact on sample integrity and laboratory testing results are still debatable. In addition, each PTS installation and configuration is unique to its institution. We sought to validate our Swisslog PTS by comparing routine chemistry, hematology, coagulation and blood gas test results and sample integrity indices between duplicate samples transported either manually or by PTS. Methods: Duplicate samples were delivered to the core laboratory manually by human courier or via the Swisslog PTS. Head-to-head comparisons of 48 routine chemistry, hematology, coagulation and blood gas laboratory tests, and three sample integrity indices were conducted on 41 healthy volunteers and 61 adult patients. Results: The PTS showed no impact on sample hemolysis, lipemia, or icterus indices (all p 0.05 and acceptable Q-Q plot distribution) were expressed as mean with standard deviation (mean ± SD) and were compared using the paired Student t-test. Alternatively, non-normally distributed analytes were expressed as median with interquartile range (IR); the Wilcoxon signed rank test, performed with the ‘exact’ method, was used for the comparison of these cases. Statistical significance was set at p
