Validation of a hand-held point of care device for lactate in adult and pediatric patients using traditional and locally-smoothed median and maximum absolute difference curves.

Background: Lactate is commonly used in septic patients and is a viable biomarker for trauma patients. Its pre-hospital use could assist triaging and managing patients with these conditions.

Methods: We evaluated the analytical performance of the point-of-care (POC) StatStrip Xpress Lactate Meter (Nova Biomedical) and compared it to the ABL 800 (Radiometer).