This study was carried out by Charlotte Thorneloe, Christian Bédard and Søren Boysen and published by Canadian Veterinary Journal (Can Vet J 2007;48:283–288). The aim of the study was to compare a handheld lactate analyser and a blood gas auto analyser in dogs in a clinical environment.

Lactate measurements were made on 30 healthy dogs and 48 dogs with various diseases. The samples were taken by either jugular or cephalic venipuncture in the healthy dogs or jugular, cephalic or saphenous vein in sick ones.  Sick dogs had a wide range of lactate values compared to healthy ones.

The blood gas analyser used for lactate measurements was NOVA statprofile M for blood gas, and the hand-held lactate analyser used was Lactate PRO. The statistical analysis compared the efficacy of both devices with a Wilcoxon signed-rank test, linear regression analysis, and Bland and Altman plots. All statistical analyses were two-tailed and the maximum accepted probabilities for type-1 errors (a) were set at 0.05.

The results obtained from both analyzers were similar. Lactate concentrations were not statistically different (P = 0.96). Linear regression analysis between lactate concentrations obtained with the 2 devices was strong and highly significant (r2 = 0.93, P, 0.0001, Figure 3).

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