Objective: To determine the effect of PCV on veterinary point-of-care (POC) glucometer measurements in canine blood samples and develop a formula to correct the glucose concentration as measured by a point-of-care glucometer (POCgluc) given a known PCV.
Design: Experimental and prospective study.
Samples: Blood samples from 6 healthy dogs and from 30 hospitalized dogs.
Procedures: 60 mL of heparinized blood was obtained from each of 6 healthy dogs. Samples were processed into packed RBCs and plasma. Packed RBCs were resuspended with plasma to achieve a range of PCVs from 0% to 94%. Duplicate POCgluc and PCV measurements were obtained for each dilution; following POCgluc measurements, plasma samples were analyzed for glucose concentration by a clinical laboratory biochemical analyzer (LABgluc). A correction formula for POCgluc was developed. Measurements of POCgluc, PCV, and LABgluc were also determined from blood samples of 30 dogs admitted to the veterinary teaching hospital.
Results: Values of LABgluc for each sample were similar at any PCV. As PCV decreased, POCgluc was falsely increased; as PCV increased, POCgluc was falsely decreased, compared with LABgluc. The absolute difference between POCgluc and LABgluc increased as the PCV changed from 50%. Compared with POCgluc, the corrected POCgluc had a significantly improved correlation with LABgluc, which was also reflected in improvements in Clarke and consensus error grid analyses.
Conclusions and clinical relevance: Results indicated that in dogs with hemodilution or hemoconcentration, POCgluc did not reflect actual patient glucose concentrations. Use of a correction formula reduced this error. Corrected POCgluc data had strong, significant correlations with LABgluc data.