UK study says arterial sampling is a pain
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Arterial puncture for blood-gas analysis is more painful than capillary sampling and can be hazardous, yet it continues to be widely used. A report in the BMJ (January 7th) says that mean differences between the two techniques are trivial and non-significant for oxygen and CO(2) measurement. Differences between acidity and standard bicarbonate readings are significantly different but this is not clinically important, according to Dr Khavar Dar, of Kettering General Hospital, UK.