Stability of potassium, calcium and phosphorus electrolytes in three different tubes in patients with essential thrombocytosis

Abstract

Proper blood collection and timely analysis are vital steps for reliable results. This study aims to compare potassium(K), calcium(Ca), and phosphorus(P) concentrations in serum separator tube (SST), lithium heparin tube without gel (LiH), and lithium heparin tube with a barrier (Barricor)tubes in essential thrombocytosis(ET) patients. Additionally, we assessed short-term stability of these analytes at room temperature. K, Ca and P concentrations of blood taken from 40 ET patients into SST, LiH and Barricor tubes were measured at 0, 2, 4 and 8 h. We calculated the percentage difference and defined the maximum permissible difference (MPD) using the Biological Variation Database. Intertube comparisons were conducted using Passing-Bablok regression and Bland-Altman analysis. Comparing SST to LiH, the percentage difference values for all tests exceeded the MPD. When comparing Barricor to LiH, K and Ca tests were above MPD, except for P. At the 8th hour, LiH showed clinically significant changes in all three electrolytes. Barricor exhibited stability for K, Ca, and P for up to 8 h, with only Ca levels borderline higher than the MPD. Our study reveals clinically significant alterations in K, Ca, and P concentrations in SST compared to LiH tubes, and in K and Ca concentrations in Barricor compared to LiH tubes. While K, Ca and P concentrations were stable for up to 4 h at room temperature in all tube types tested, significant changes were observed in all electrolytes at 8 h in the LiH tube.

Keywords:

• Electrolytes
• hypercalcemia
• hyperkalemia
• hyperphosphatemia
• thrombocytosis

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all participants who voluntarily participated in this study.

Ethics approval statement

The study was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and the ethics committee approval was obtained with the decision of the Ethics Committee of Izmir Bakırcay University, dated 22.02.2023 and numbered 894.

Authors’ contributions

Murat Aksit conceived the original idea. All authors contributed to the design of the work. Murat Aksit, Merve Zeytinli Aksit, and Cengiz Ceylan performed the data acquisition and data analysis. All authors contributed to the interpretation of data. All authors critically revised the work and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.