The effects of drone transportation on routine laboratory, immunohematology, flow cytometry and molecular analyses.

Objectives: Transportation of medical samples between laboratories or hospital sites is typically performed by motorized ground transport. Due to the increased traffic congestions in urban environments, drone transportation has become an attractive alternative for fast shipping of samples. In accordance with the CLSI guidelines and the ISO 15189 standard, the impact of this transportation type on sample integrity and performance of laboratory tests must be thoroughly validated.

Methods: Blood samples from 36 healthy volunteers and bacterial spiked urine samples were subjected to a 20-40 min drone flight before they were analyzed and compared with their counterparts that stayed on the ground. Effects on stability of 30 routine biochemical and hematological parameters, immunohematology tests and flow cytometry and molecular tests were evaluated.

Results: No clinically relevant effects on blood group typing, flow cytometry lymphocyte subset testing and on the stability of the multicopy opacity-associated proteins (Opa) genes in bacterial DNA nor on the number of Abelson murine leukemia viral oncogene homolog 1 (abl) housekeeping genes in human peripheral blood cells were seen. For three of the 30 biochemistry and hematology parameters a statistically significant difference was found: gamma-glutamyl transferase (gamma-GT), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH) and thrombocyte count. A clinically relevant effect however was only seen for potassium and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH).

Conclusions: Multi-rotor drone transportation can be used for medical sample transportation with no effect on the majority of the tested parameters, including flow cytometry and molecular analyses, with the exception of a limited clinical impact on potassium and LDH.