Performance Evaluation of Cartridge-Type Blood Gas Analyzer: i-Smart 300

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Blood gas analysis plays a crucial role in critical care settings, and immediate and precise analysis improves clinical outcomes through prompt treatment. We evaluated the performance of a cartridge-type blood gas analyzer, i-Smart 300 (i-SENS, Korea), according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute (CLSI) guidelines and compared it to a conventional blood gas analyzer. METHODS: The precision was evaluated according to CLSI EP5-A3. The i-Smart 300 was compared to the Stat Profile Critical Care Xpress (STP CCX) (Nova CCX; Nova Biomedical, USA) according to CLSI EP9-A3 using the following eight parameters pH, partial carbon dioxide pressure, partial oxygen pressure, sodium, potassium, chloride, ionized calcium, and hematocrit. Linearity was determined using five levels of control materials according to CLSI EP6-A. RESULTS: Within-run precision and total precision, demonstrated as coefficients of variation, ranged from 0.02 to 2.50% and from 0.05 to 3.46%, respectively. Correlation analysis yielded a correlation coefficient from 0.966 to 0.996 between the i-Smart 300 and the conventional analyzer (Nova CCX). The i-Smart 300 showed excellent linearity at eight parameters with acceptable percent recovery. CONCLUSIONS: The i-Smart 300, a portable cartridge-type blood gas analyzer, showed high precision and good correlation with a traditional bench-top blood gas analyzer. It could be useful in critical care settings.