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To assess agreement between venous and capillary lactate sampling, researchers performed a prospective observational pilot study of 99 patients who presented to a single emergency department in the U.K. in 2014. Patients aged 16 years or older were enrolled if the treating physician deemed lactate measurement necessary and the sample was obtained within 4 hours of presentation. Paired peripheral venous and capillary blood samples were obtained within 20 minutes of each other.
Only five samples had a venous lactate level greater than 4 mmol/L. The mean difference between paired capillary and venous lactate measurements (bias) was 0.2 mmol/L, with 95% limits of agreement from −1.9 to 2.3. The authors conclude that these results demonstrate poo…