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Comparison of Improvacuter™ tubes with BD Vacutainer™ tubes for various hormones in the aspects of stability and influence of gel separators

  • Cevdet Zungun , Fatma MeriÇ Yılmaz EMAIL logo , Elif Guney Boru and Canan Topcuoglu
Published/Copyright: August 15, 2014
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Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM)
From the journal Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM) Volume 53 Issue 2

Abstract

Background: Validation of blood collection tubes are important to determine the role of different collection tubes which influence the assurance of laboratory results. We compared two different tubes (Improvacuter™ and Becton Dickinson [BD] Vacutainer™) and investigated the effect of gel and storage time in comparison with each other.

Methods: We compared the results of nine immunoassays performed on UniCel® DxI 800 using blood samples collected in BD Vacutainer SST II Advance tubes, Improvacuter Gel and Clot Activator tubes, BD Vacutainer Clot Activator tubes and Improvacuter tubes. Analytes were measured in all tubes on 3 consecutive days to study the effect of long-term storage. Evaluation of clinical significance was performed based on total allowable error.

Results: Estradiol and testosterone concentrations obtained from Improvacuter Gel and Clot Activator tubes and BD Vacutainer SST II Advance tubes remained below the lower limits of analytical range for the same analytes while they were within the limits in BD Vacutainer Clot Activator tubes and Improvacuter tubes. Statistical significance of stability was not clinically significant for the hormone parameters we tested in all four tubes.

Conclusions: Gel containing tubes (both BD and Improve) gave comparable results with the tubes which do not contain gel except for estradiol and testosterone. The use of gel containing tubes for estradiol and testosterone are not recommended on UniCel® DxI 800 according to our results. The change in the analyte concentrations over 48 h remained within the TEA limits for the studied analytes. Improve tubes gave similar results to BD tubes.

Keywords: BD Vacutainer; gel separator tube; hormone assay; improvacuter; stability
Corresponding author: Prof. Dr. Fatma MeriÇ Yılmaz, Ankara Numune Training and Research Hospital, Clinical Biochemistry Laboratory, Altındağ, Ankara, Turkey, Phone: +90 312 5085054, Fax: +90 312 3621364, E-mail: ; and Faculty of Medicine, Biochemistry Department, Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Ankara, Turkey

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Received: 2014-6-2
Accepted: 2014-7-21
Published Online: 2014-8-15
Published in Print: 2015-2-1

©2015 by De Gruyter

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorials
  3. The new and the old of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia
  4. Biological variation – reliable data is essential
  5. Biological variation: back to basics
  6. Review
  7. Influence of educational, audit and feedback, system based, and incentive and penalty interventions to reduce laboratory test utilization: a systematic review
  8. Opinion Papers
  9. Recent guidelines and recommendations for laboratory assessment of the direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs): is there consensus?
  10. Meeting report: present state of molecular genetics in clinical laboratories. Report on the VII European Symposium on Clinical Laboratory and In Vitro Diagnostic Industry in Barcelona
  11. Genetics and Molecular Diagnostics
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  17. Use of quality indicators to compare point-of-care testing errors in a neonatal unit and errors in a STAT central laboratory
  18. Serological features of antibodies to protamine inducing thrombocytopenia and thrombosis
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  22. Performance evaluation of the digital cell imaging analyzer DI-60 integrated into the fully automated Sysmex XN hematology analyzer system
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  26. Cardiovascular Diseases
  27. The tumor necrosis factor-α –238G/A and IL-6 –572G/C gene polymorphisms and the risk of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy: a meta-analysis of 25 studies including 9493 cases and 13,971 controls
  28. Diabetes
  29. Multicentre evaluation of the Premier Hb9210 HbA1c analyser
  30. Infectious Diseases
  31. Determination of quality control limits for serological infectious disease testing using historical data
  32. Corrigendum
  33. Enrichment and enumeration of circulating tumor cells by efficient depletion of leukocyte fractions
  34. Letters to the Editors
  35. Influence of age and gender on red blood cell distribution width
  36. Effect of exhaustive running exercise on red blood cell distribution width
  37. Clinically useful samples and reference change value
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https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2014-0583
Keywords for this article
BD Vacutainer; gel separator tube; hormone assay; improvacuter; stability

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorials
  3. The new and the old of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia
  4. Biological variation – reliable data is essential
  5. Biological variation: back to basics
  6. Review
  7. Influence of educational, audit and feedback, system based, and incentive and penalty interventions to reduce laboratory test utilization: a systematic review
  8. Opinion Papers
  9. Recent guidelines and recommendations for laboratory assessment of the direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs): is there consensus?
  10. Meeting report: present state of molecular genetics in clinical laboratories. Report on the VII European Symposium on Clinical Laboratory and In Vitro Diagnostic Industry in Barcelona
  11. Genetics and Molecular Diagnostics
  12. Non-invasive prenatal diagnosis of monogenic disorders: an optimized protocol using MEMO qPCR with miniSTR as internal control
  13. A novel biosensor-based microarray assay for the visualized detection of CYP2C19 ∗2, ∗3, ∗4 and ∗5 polymorphisms
  14. General Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
  15. Preanalytical errors: a preliminary approach to the point of view of primary health care givers
  16. Comparison of Improvacuter™ tubes with BD Vacutainer™ tubes for various hormones in the aspects of stability and influence of gel separators
  17. Use of quality indicators to compare point-of-care testing errors in a neonatal unit and errors in a STAT central laboratory
  18. Serological features of antibodies to protamine inducing thrombocytopenia and thrombosis
  19. Comparison of three different immunoassays in the diagnosis of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia
  20. How the direct oral anticoagulant apixaban affects hemostatic parameters. Results of a multicenter multiplatform study
  21. Auto-validation of complete blood counts in an outpatient’s regional laboratory
  22. Performance evaluation of the digital cell imaging analyzer DI-60 integrated into the fully automated Sysmex XN hematology analyzer system
  23. Circulating keratan sulfate as a marker of metabolic changes of cartilage proteoglycan in juvenile idiopathic arthritis; influence of growth factors as well as proteolytic and prooxidative agents on aggrecan alterations
  24. Reference Values and Biological Variations
  25. Biological variation database: structure and criteria used for generation and update
  26. Cardiovascular Diseases
  27. The tumor necrosis factor-α –238G/A and IL-6 –572G/C gene polymorphisms and the risk of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy: a meta-analysis of 25 studies including 9493 cases and 13,971 controls
  28. Diabetes
  29. Multicentre evaluation of the Premier Hb9210 HbA1c analyser
  30. Infectious Diseases
  31. Determination of quality control limits for serological infectious disease testing using historical data
  32. Corrigendum
  33. Enrichment and enumeration of circulating tumor cells by efficient depletion of leukocyte fractions
  34. Letters to the Editors
  35. Influence of age and gender on red blood cell distribution width
  36. Effect of exhaustive running exercise on red blood cell distribution width
  37. Clinically useful samples and reference change value
  38. Loss of retinol stability in patient samples
  39. Evaluation of a new thyroglobulin sensitive assay in patients with differentiated thyroid cancer
  40. Caution in a case of highly discrepant carbohydrate antigen 19-9 values in an apparently healthy patient taking spirulina: a case report
  41. Influence of vitamin K antagonist treatment on activated partial thromboplastin time
  42. Evaluation of the diagnostic characteristics of urinary kidney injury molecule 1 (uKIM-1) and uKIM-1/creatinine ratio in the assessment of incipient diabetic kidney disease
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