Comparison of an Aqueous and a Fluorocarbon Blood Gas Control.

Two blood gas analyzer controls were evaluated, on with an aqueous base G.A.S., General Diagnostics and one containing fluorocarbon oils abc, Instrumentation Laboratory, Inc.. On 32 consecutive workdays, pH, pCO2 and pO2 were measured using both manufacturers controls for low, normal and high values. There were 22 occasions when values for G.A.S. solutions were not of the expected ranges, and only 3 occasions when values for abc controls were out of the expected ranges. For low pH, and normal pCO2, and low, normal and high pO2 ranges, abc controls had standard deviations and coefficients of variation that were 30 to 70 lower than those for G.A.S. controls. The greatest difference in variation was observed with pO2 values. Although without refrigeration abc controls have a shelf-life of only 3 months and the cost per ampule is 17 higher, the abc controls produced less day-to-day variations than G.A.S. controls and are therefore better blood gas analyzer controls.