Impact of delayed centrifugation on the stability of 32 biochemical analytes in blood samples collected in serum gel tubes and stored at room temperature

María Sanz-Felisi; Paula Tauler-Quetglas; Teresa Escartín-Díez; Ariadna Arbiol-Roca; Dolors Dot-Bach

doi:10.1515/cclm-2025-0109

Article

Impact of delayed centrifugation on the stability of 32 biochemical analytes in blood samples collected in serum gel tubes and stored at room temperature

María Sanz-Felisi , Paula Tauler-Quetglas , Teresa Escartín-Díez , Ariadna Arbiol-Roca and Dolors Dot-Bach

Published/Copyright: March 14, 2025

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From the journal Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM) Volume 63 Issue 8

Abstract

Objectives

Evaluate the stability of 32 biochemical analytes in venous blood samples stored at 18–25 °C under different time delays prior to centrifugation.

Methods

A prospective study was conducted involving 33 healthy volunteers. Four venous blood samples were collected from each participant. One sample was designated as baseline and processed immediately according to the tube manufacturer’s guidelines for centrifugation and analysis. The remaining three samples were stored under predefined conditions and centrifuged at different time intervals before undergoing analysis.

Results

Acceptable stability over the maximum storage time of 8 h was observed for 25 of the analytes tested in this study. However, direct bilirubin became unstable at 6 h and triglycerides at 8 h of storage prior to centrifugation. Calcium, gamma-glutamyl transferase, glucose, inorganic phosphate and potassium were found to be unstable in serum after 4 h of delayed centrifugation.

Conclusions

A delay in centrifugation of samples affected the stability of several analytes evaluated in the study, resulting in changes in their concentration or integrity. The analytical results for these analytes cannot be considered reliable as they do not meet the standards required for clinical validation. This underscores the importance of following stringent pre-analytical protocols to maintain the accuracy and reliability of laboratory diagnostic results.

Keywords: biochemical analytes; centrifugation; serum; stability

Corresponding author: Ariadna Arbiol-Roca, PhD, Territorial Clinical Laboratory Metropolitan South – Bellvitge University Hospital, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, 08907, Spain, E-mail: ariadna.arbiol@bellvitgehospital.cat

María Sanz-Felisi and Paula Tauler-Quetglas contributed equally to this work and share first authorship.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our phlebotomy staff for their assistance, especially phlebotomist Daniela Yolanda Suikoski Aguirre for her invaluable assistance in collecting the blood samples. We would also like to thank the staff of the Clinical Laboratory, in particular the Clinical Biochemistry, Microbiology and Pharmacy Departments, for their generous voluntary blood donations, which formed the basis of the study.

Research ethics: This work has been carried out following the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The work has been approved by the clinical research ethics committee of the Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge (PR179/24).
Informed consent: Not applicable.
Author contributions: The authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission. Sanz-Felisi, María: Conceptualization, methodology, validation, investigation, writing-review & editing, visualization. Tauler-Quetglas, Paula: Conceptualization, methodology, validation, investigation, writing-review & editing, visualization. Escartín-Díez, Teresa: Conceptualization, methodology, validation, investigation, resources, writing-review & editing, project administration, supervision Arbiol-Roca, Ariadna: Conceptualization, methodology, validation, investigation, resources, writing-review & editing, project administration, supervision. Dot-Bach, Dolors: Conceptualization, methodology, validation, investigation, resources, writing-review & editing, project administration, supervision.
Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.
Conflict of interest: The authors state no conflict of interest.
Research funding: None declared.
Data availability: The raw data collected during this study can be found in the Supplementary Material of the manuscript.

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Supplementary Material

This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2025-0109).

Received: 2025-01-28

Accepted: 2025-03-04

Published Online: 2025-03-14

Published in Print: 2025-07-28

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Supplementary Material

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2025-0109

Keywords for this article

biochemical analytes; centrifugation; serum; stability