Evaluation of a novel in-line point-of-care blood gas analyser.

Point-of-care testing is becoming increasingly relevant to the practice of anaesthesia and critical care medicine, especially in terms of minimisation of sample volumes and decreased time to decision making. We performed a prospective observational study to evaluate a novel, in-line blood gas analysis device against a conventional benchtop model, and assessed it while placing the enrolled patients under extreme physiological conditions, specifically deep hypothermic circulatory arrest. Eight patients were studied, and had between seven and 11 samples analysed for seven variables (pH, pCO2 , pO2 , HCO3 (-) , base excess [BE], K(+) and haematocrit [Hct]), using the device during the process of cooling to 20 °C on cardiopulmonary bypass, and subsequent rewarming to normothermia.