Abstract 1238 Poster Session II, Sunday, 5/2 (poster 18)

Prolonged hypoglycemia can be as damaging to the newborn brain as hypoxia-ischemia. Most rapid bedside methods of measuring blood glucose have been validated in the range above 2.6 mmol/L using adult blood.

The aim of this study was to test the accuracy of 2 commonly used bedside methods of glucose estimation in the clinically important range of 0.5 to 4 mmol/L, using neonatal cord blood with a hematocrit over 0.5.

Methods

Cord blood samples were allowed to stand for varying periods of time to allow the glucose levels to fall in the range of 0.5 to 4 mmol/L.

103 samples were analysed simultaneously in duplicate by a) Cobas hexokinase in the laboratory, b) Hemocue and c) Precision Q.I.D.

Results

Using the laboratory Hexokinase method as the gold standard, the sensitivity and specificity of Precision Q.I.D. for detecting hypoglycemia (whole blood glucose less than 2.6mmol/L) were 86% and 89% respectively; and those for Hemocue were 83% and 100%.

Precision Q.I.D. - Hexokinase(difference) was 0.21±0.32 mmol/L.

Hemocue - Hexokinase(difference) was 0.34±0.23 mmol/L (mean± SD).

Conclusions

Both bedside methods tend to overestimate the blood glucose and a bedside value over 3.0 mmol/L would be needed to confidently exclude hypoglycemia.