Plastic vs glass capillary tubes for neonatal blood gas sampling (V1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Plastic vs glass capillary tubes for neonatal blood gas sampling (Version 1)
IRAS ID
209801
Contact name
Kristin Tanney
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
Babies in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) require anything from one to ten blood gases daily, depending on ventilation requirements, stability, and underlying morbidities. Our NICU has 58 cots, with roughly one third intensive care, one third high dependency, and one third special care. On any one day, there may be hundreds of blood gases taken by nurses or junior medical staff, with 3800 gases taken in May ’16. \n\nSome blood gases are taken from an arterial line, but most are done by heel-prick, currently sampled with a glass capillary tube. Some units have switched from glass to plastic capillary tubes due to episodes of glass tubes snapping or shattering, occasionally causing injury to the baby or staff member taking the sample, and requiring repeat sampling. Historically, staff are poor at “incident reporting” these episodes, but anecdotally they happen almost daily. \n\nDespite many neonatal units having switched to these safer plastic capillary tubes, very little has been published on their reliability and comparability with glass tubes. Before our NICU commence using plastic capillary tubes as routine, we would like to undertake a clinical study comparing the two types of tube, to ensure that the results we obtain from plastic capillary tubes are reliable, that the tubes are user-friendly, and that their use does not result in an increase in sample errors and the need to re-bleed our often very small and premature babies. \n\nWe plan to take (from babies 1 Kg and above) an extra 0.1 ml blood sample to analyse in a plastic capillary tube after the routine 0.1 ml glass tube sample, on occasions where babies continue to bleed well. We will do this for a maximum of 5 blood gases per baby, and will compare all blood gas parameters with the help of a statistician.
REC name
North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/NW/0824
Date of REC Opinion
1 Dec 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion