Comparison of laboratory and bedside hemoglobin measurements of patients with blunt abdominal trauma in the emergency department

INTRODUCTION: We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of bedside non-invazive hemoglobin measurements during the clinical follow-up and decision of termination of patients admitted to the Dokuz Eylül University Hospital Emergency Department with blunt abdominal trauma.METHOD: The universe of our prospective, cross-sectional and descriptive research is formed from the patients admitted to Dokuz Eylül University Hospital Emergency Department with blunt abdominal trauma, met the criteria for inclusion and taken blood samples for hemoglobin levels during the dates between 01/11/2011-30/11/2011. Serial non-invasive bedside measurements of hemoglobin levels (HbYB) were measured from the fourth finger of non-dominant hand with Radical-7TM Pulse CO-OksimeterTM. Blood hemoglobin levels (HbLab) were measured with Coulter® LH 780 hematology analyzer (Beckman Coulter, Stive) in the hematology laboratory..RESULTS: 70 patients met the inclusion criteria were taken to the study. The avarage of laboratuary and non-invazive bedside hemoglobin levels on admission were 13,9±1,5 gr/dL and 13.4±1.6 gr/dL, respectively. When two methods compared, hemoglobin levels showed an avarage 0.56±0.83 gr/dL differance (95% confidence interval 0.3685 to 0.7687).CONCLUSION: In this study serial non-invasive bedside monitoring of hemoglobin measurements with Radical-7TM Pulse CO-OksimeterTM and standard laboratory measurement of hemoglobin levels were found to be compatible with each other. This device can be used as an alternative method during the hemoglobin level follow-up of blunt abdominal trauma patients.Keywords: Hemoglobin, blunt abdominal trauma, Radical-7TM Pulse CO-OksimeterTM