Mathematical Arterialization of Venous Blood Gas

Objective: Arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis is essential in the clinical assessment of potential acutely ill patients. Venous to arterial conversion (v-TAC), a mathematical method, has recently been developed to convert peripheral venous blood gas (VBG) values to arterialized VBG (aVBG) values. The aim of this study was to test the reliability of aVBG compared to ABG in an emergency department (ED) setting. Method: Twenty ED patients were included in this study. ABG and three aVBG samples were collected from each patient. The aVBG samples were processed in three different ways for comparison: aVBG1 was held steady and analysed within 5 minutes; aVBG2 was tilted in 5 minutes and analysed within 7 minutes; aVBG3 was held steady and analysed after 15 minutes. All VBG samples were arterialized using the v-TAC method. ABG and aVBG samples were compared using Lin's Concordance Correlation Coefficient (CCC) and Bland-Altman's analysis.