Blood Lead Collection

Blood Lead Specimen Guide

We recommend shipping on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Courier or other transport service may be transported Monday through Thursday. Do not ship on Friday.

Specimen collection instructions for Blood Lead Capillary Microtainer collection:

Materials Required but Not Provided

• Alcohol swabs
• Dry sterile gauze pads
• Gloves for the person performing the collections.
• Lancet as appropriate for site and volume of blood required
• Sharps and contaminated materials disposal containers

Optional Materials for Specimen Collection

• Warming device if required, dependent on the volume of blood and tests to be performed.
• Adhesive bandage. Avoid the use of bandages with patients likely to place fingers or feet in their mouths, as ingestion/aspiration may occur.

Directions for Use

Note: For plasma and hematology tube, pre-assemble BD Microtainer® Tube by removing plug and replacing plug with FloTop collector.

Do not discard plug.

1. Gloves must be worn during skin puncture collection.
2. Select puncture site, warm as appropriate, and cleanse with alcohol.
3. Allow site to dry. Do not dry by wiping, as disinfection occurs during air-drying.
4. Puncture skin, with appropriate lancet, following instructions supplied by the manufacturer. Dispose of lancet in an approved sharps container. Wipe away first drop of blood with gauze.
5. Hold BD Microtainer® Tube with FloTop collector vent hole in upward position. Touch collector end of reseivoir to drop of blood. Avoid scraping skin surface to collect blood sample. Blood will freely flow to bottom of tube. Caution: "Milking" of skin puncture site may cause hemolysis and adversely affect test result accuracy.
6. Fill plasma and hematology tube between fill marks. Over or underfilling of tube may result in clotting and/or erroneous test results. Fill serum tubes to required volume.
7. Twist off FloTop collector and replace with appropriate color-coded plug.
8. Plasma and hematology tubes: invert 8 to 10 times to assure anticoagulation. Serum tubes: allow blood to clot for a minimum of 30 minutes.
9. Hematology tube should be mixed thoroughly just prior to analysis. A minimum of twenty manual inversions (or 5 to 10 minutes on a mechanical mixer) is recommended.
10. Fill other BD Microtainer® Tubes as required. Note: If capillary blood gas testing is to be done, the capillary tubes used to collect samples must be filled before the odler samples are collected. Otherwise, die EDTA samples for hematology testing should be filled first.
11. Dispose of used lancet into an approved sharps container if this has not been done. Dispose of any contaminated materials into appropriate container.