Arterialised earlobe blood gas analysis: an underused technique.

Arterialised earlobe blood gas analysis: an underused technique.

BACKGROUND Techniques for sampling arterialised capillary blood from the finger pulp and the earlobe were first described over two decades ago but, although close agreement between arterial values and earlobe samples has been demonstrated in normal subjects, this technique is not in common usage. METHODS Forty patients with chronic lung disease and a wide range of arterial blood gas values we...

Earlobe arterialized capillary blood gas analysis in the intensive care unit: a pilot study

BACKGROUND Earlobe arterialized capillary blood gas analysis can be used to estimate arterial gas content and may be suitable for diagnosis and management of critically ill patients. However, its utility and applicability in the ICU setting remains unexplored. METHODS A prospective observational validation study was designed to evaluate this technique in a cohort of mechanically ventilated ad...

Microfenestrated split thickness skin grafts: an underused technique?

Prediction of arterial blood gas values from arterialized earlobe blood gas values in patients treated with mechanical ventilation

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE Arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis is useful in evaluation of the clinical condition of critically ill patients; however, arterial puncture or insertion of an arterial catheter may sometimes be difficult and cause many complications. Arterialized ear lobe blood samples have been described as adequate to gauge gas exchange in acute and chronically ill pediatric patients. PU...

Arterialised blood gas sampling in the critically ill: Correct tools for the job?

Sampling from blood has been performed for over 200 years. However clinically useful arterial blood gas sampling became a reality after the development of robust methods for measuring oxygen tension from humans in the 1940s. Thus the development of the Clark electrode and subsequent safe tools for sampling plasma, heralded an era of blood sampling, and analysis from which we have not looked bac...