Ra. Malinauskas, PLASMA HEMOGLOBIN MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES FOR THE IN-VITRO EVALUATION OF BLOOD DAMAGE CAUSED BY MEDICAL DEVICES, Artificial organs, 21(12), 1997, pp. 1255-1267
A sensitive measure of the in vitro blood dam age potential of a medic
al device is the rate at which hemoglobin is released into the plasma
from red blood cells flowing through the device. Presently there is no
one widely accepted method for measuring the plasma:hemoglobin concen
tration. Nine currently used assays, classified as either direct optic
al or added chemical techniques, were evaluated for accuracy, reproduc
ibility, sensitivity, interference effects, and ease of use by adding
hemoglobin (1-200 mg/dl) to saline, lipid, and bilirubin solutions and
to normal cow plasma. Most of the assays displayed good linearity? ac
curacy, and reproducibility down to 1 mg/dl when interferents were abs
ent. However, representative of the effects caused by interferents, th
e endogenous hemoglobin concentration of a typical cow plasma sample m
easured by the 9 techniques ranged from -2 to 39 mg/dl. Although used
by fewer organizations, some of the direct optical spectrophotometric
methods (e.g., the Cripps and Harboe baseline correction methods) are
safer, easier, and more precise and accurate than the chemical additio
n methods used to measure plasma hemoglobin concentration from in vitr
o blood damage testing of medical devices.