Influence of reduced centrifugation time on clinical chemistry analytes and literature review

Abstract Objectives Centrifugation is a time-consuming step which increases the turnaround time (TAT) in laboratories. A few studies have addressed the effect of altering centrifugation settings on analytical quality for clinical chemistry analytes, and most of these studies have used collection tubes with gel separators. However, gel separator tubes may be unsuitable for some laboratories because they are slightly more expensive than tubes without gel separators and are not appropriate for some special tests. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of centrifugation conditions on clinical chemistry analytes. Methods We compared centrifugation times of 7 min at 2,200×g and 5 min at 2,750×g with the manufacturer’s protocol of 10 min at 1,300×g as the reference condition. Twenty general chemistry analytes were studied in lithium heparin plasma tubes without gel separators. Results For all analytes except carbon dioxide (CO2), no significant differences in analyte results were observed when the centrifugation time was reduced. Deming regression and Bland–Altman plots demonstrated an acceptable clinical concordance within the limits of total allowable error for all analytes between the two rapid centrifugation conditions with the reference centrifugation condition. Conclusions Our results confirmed that alternate centrifugation conditions for either 7 min at 2,200×g or 5 min at 2,750×g of samples collected in lithium heparin tubes without gel are acceptable for clinical chemistry analytes. Our data support using centrifugation at higher speeds for shorter times to improve TAT without altering the quality of the analytical results.