Evaluation of the Lactate Pro blood lactate analyser

An evaluation of the hand-held portable Lactate Pro Analyser (KDK) was unde rtaken to assess its accuracy, reliability and versatility. Capillary blood samples were drawn from elite athletes in both laboratory and field settin gs and analysed in parallel. Accuracy was determined in relation to three o ther lactate analysers: (1) the ABL 700 Series Acid-Base analyser (n = 172 cases), (2) the Accusport Lactate Meter (n = 118 cases), and (3) the YSI 23 00 Stat lactate analyser (n = 22 cases). The level of agreement was determi ned over the range of 1-18 mM. The repeatability of results between two dif ferent Lactate Pro analysers was also determined over the same range. Versa tility was assessed in the field, where the Lactate Pro was used with elite athletes under a range of outdoor and indoor testing conditions. The corre lations between the Lactate Pro and the ABL 700 Series Acid-Base analyser, YSI 2300 and Accusport were r = 0.98, r = 0.99, r = 0.97. The correlation b etween the two Lactate Pro analysers on the same sample (n = 96 cases) was r = 0.99. The level of agreement between the Lactate Pro and other analyser s was generally less than +/- 2.0 mM over the physiological range of 1.0-18 .0 mM (range of mean difference: -0.06 mM to 0.52 mM). The Lactate Pro was easy to operate and successfully completed the sample analysis in 100% of t he tests performed. In summary, the Lactate Pro is accurate, reliable and e xhibits a high degree of agreement with other lactate analysers.