The evaluation of rapid serum tubes for various immunoassay tests

INTRODUCTION: One of the most crucial steps on the preanalytical process that affect laboratory test results is proper and timely blood collection. In this study, we aimed to compare Rapid Serum Tubes (RST) and Serum Separator Tubes (SST) with no additive Z tubes concerning various immunoassay tests.
METHODS: Blood samples were collected from 50 healthy volunteers into three blood collection tubes. Sera from Z tube, SST and RST were analysed simultaneously for thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), free triiodothyronine (fT3), free thyroxine (fT4), folate, vitamin B12, 25-OH vitamin D (25-OHD), parathyroid hormone (PTH), cortisol, ferritin, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) on DXI800 autoanalyser (Beckman Coulter, USA). The results were evaluated by comparing each tube pairs (Z tube-SST, Z tube-RST) according to desirable bias.
RESULTS: There was no statistically significant difference between the two tube pairs for most analytes. There was not any significant clinical difference according to a desirable bias for the analytes tested.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: RST offers acceptable clinical performance for the immunoassay tests performed in this study on DXI platform. The laboratory turn-around-times for immunoassay tests could be shortened approximately 15-20 minutes by the usage of RSTs.