Capillary and venous lactate measurements with a handheld device compared to venous blood-gas analysis for emergency patients.

BACKGROUND/AIM: Early identification of lactate levels may have a large impact on triage classification and assist in identifying critically ill patients. A handheld device provides a rapid and timesaving measurement of lactate levels adapted to work in a prehospital care setting. I.e., the device is small, fast, and easy-to-use. The aim of this study was to evaluate the Accutrend Plus handheld lactate analyzer in comparison to the reference in-hospital method.

METHODS: Patients triaged as minimum yellow according to the RETTS System (Rapid Emergency Triage and Treatment System) and transported to hospital by ambulance were selected and a written consent to participate was obtained prior to inclusion in the study. Capillary (CAP) and venous (VEN) blood were analyzed with Accutrend Plus (AP). Venous blood samples were analyzed at the local hospital laboratory (GEM premier 4000) within 20 min from sampling. All sampling was conducted by two registered nurses specially trained in prehospital care.

RESULTS: 480 lactate measurements were performed in 160 patients. The mean difference between measurements in capillary blood compared with the reference method was 0.7 mmol/L and for venous blood 0.9 mmol/L. The limits of agreement from the Bland-Altman plot was - 0.9 to + 2.5 mmol/L and and - 0.1 to + 1.9 mmol/L, for CAP and VEN compared with GEM.

CONCLUSION: Our results shows low accuracy and low precision with VEN / CAP measurements of lactate compared to reference GEM.