Evaluation of MiniCollect® Lithium Heparin Tubes with Spray-Dried Additive

Greiner Bio-One has developed new MiniCollect® tubes incorporating spray-dried additives. The advantage of the new technology is that the additive is more uniformly coated on the inner tube walls and the mixing characteristics are improved. The MiniCollect® Lithium Heparin capillary blood collection tube is also featured with the unique cross-cut cap which does not need to be removed during the collection and sampling process. Clotting is inhibited by the presence of a spray dried Lithium Heparin coating the interior of the tube. Heparinized plasma is the virtually cell-free supernatant following the centrifugation of whole blood. Heparin works by accelerating the inhibition of factor Xa by antithrombin III.A clinical evaluation was carried out to compare the performance of the new spray-dried MiniCollect® Lithium Heparin tube in comparison to the Becton Dickinson Microtainer® LH Lithium Heparin tube.