Be cautious during the interpretation of arterial blood gas analysis performed outside the intensive care unit.

Introduction: Reliable results of an arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis are crucial for the implementation of appropriate diagnostics and therapy. We aimed to investigate the differences (Δ) between ABG parameters obtained from point-of-care testing (POCT) and central laboratory (CL) measurements, taking into account the turnaround time (TAT).

Materials And Methods: A number of 208 paired samples were collected from 54 intensive care unit (ICU) patients.