LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Determination of lactate value
Determinação do valor de lactato
Viroj WiwanitkitI
Wiwanitkit House, Bangkhae, Bangkok, Thailand
IMD, PhD. Professor, Wiwanitkit House, Bangkhae, Bangkok, Thailand
Address for correspondence Address for correspondence: Professor Viroj Wiwanitkit Wiwanitkit House, Bangkhae, Bangkok, Thailand 10160 Tel. (+66) 24132436 E-mail: wviroj@yahoo.com
Dear Editor,
I read a recently published paper on determination of lactate values with great interest.1 It was concluded that "Lcen, and not Lper, can replace Lart with good correlation and clinical agreement. Lper tends to overestimate Lart, thus leading to unnecessary therapeutic interventions".1 There are some concerns regarding this work. First, it has to be clarified that the lactate levels determined at each site are not the same. The values from arterial, venous and capillary blood cannot be interchanged with each another. Second, the quality control for the analytical technique should be mentioned. In general practice, a point-of-care testing tool might be used for capillary blood samples, while a standard clinical chemistry analyzer might be used for arterial and venous blood samples. This may simply result in differences.
Sources of funding: None
Conflict of interest: None
Date of first submission: May 23, 2011
Last received: May 23, 2011
Accepted: August 23, 2011
- 1. Nascente AP, Assunção M, Guedes CJ, et al. Comparison of lactate values obtained from different sites and their clinical significance in patients with severe sepsis. Sao Paulo Med J. 2011;129(1):11-6.
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
03 Apr 2012 -
Date of issue
2012