Thursday, June 27, 2013

Common Tubes Used In Blood Specimen Collection

By Estela Bolton


At some point in a person's life, there will come a time when it is necessary to go for blood specimen collection. This is especially the case when one needs to go for a medical examination. This fluid will be collected by a certified nurse and submitted to the laboratory for an analysis. One can expect the test results as soon as the analysis is done.

The nurse is someone who can do a reliable job in this task. Nurses should be relied upon since they are knowledgeable in this task. They will do their best to take note of factors that might affect the accuracy of the test result as well. After all, the results will vary depending on factors such as medications, pregnancy, gender, or age.

Once the nurse has completed the note for these sample, the collected fluid will then be put in the correct tubes. The person should know that there is a variety of colored stopper caps for every tube. Here are the tube types that the person might want to know more about.

One of the many tubes that the person will have to know about is the red top. This is an important tube that the medical personnel will use for medical examinations such as cross-matching and blood typing. There are other examinations for this type of tube, though.

The person might also make use of the SST or serum separator tube. The other name for the SST is tiger top. Expect some additives in the SST as well. Most of the times, it will just contain polymer gel or clot activator. With these additives, the serum can be easily separated when the tube is placed inside the centrifuge.

There is the lavender top that the individual can handle as well. This is actually the kind of tube which the person can use in order to obtain a total blood count. The additive in this kind of tube is the EDTA. It is a type of anticoagulant additive. The purpose of having this additive is to chelate the calcium in the fluid.

There is the dark green top tube as well. The said tube is commonly being used these days in those medical examinations that will require the person to know what the ammonia level or lithium level is in the collected fluid. The only additive in this tube is an anticoagulant agent commonly known as herapin.

It might be helpful to go for the light blue top as well. The only additive agent in this tube is the sodium citrate. Truth be told, the sodium citrate is the type of additive that will help in the removal of calcium from the fluid. This will then help in the acquisition of the PT and PTT level of the said fluid.

Take advantage of the light gray top as well. There is sodium fluoride, antiglycolytic agents, and potassium oxylates in this tube. These additives will just help preserve the glucose in the fluid for as much as five days. This fundamentally means that the individual can obtain the glucose level when using this kind of tube for blood specimen collection.




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