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.