Analysis of Blood Gas

Abstract

Analysis of blood gas has recently been a rapidly developed medical inspection technique. At the end of the 1950s, Poul Astrup, a Danish physician, and chemist, developed the first blood gas analyzer. Since then, blood gas analysis techniques have played an essential role in rescue and intensive care, diagnosis and treatment of acute respiratory failure, surgery, and other processes. Blood gas analyzers were manually operated in the early development and application stage from the end of the 1950s to the 1960s. They had an unwieldy structure (100 kg), required a large sample volume (about 2 mL), and could measure fewer values (only pH, pCO₂, and pO₂). From the 1970s to the 1980s, the rapid development of computer and electronic technologies pushed the development of blood gas analyzers into the fully automatic era. The integrated circuits were adopted to improve the structure and reduce the weight to below 30 kg. Besides, the menu was increasingly simple; users could conduct operations under the prompt and measure and calculate more parameters with the instrument. The continuous development also shortened the time required to preheat the instrument and measure the parameters. Since the 1990s, with the further application of computer technologies in the blood gas analysis sector, the advanced help mode and icon mode on the interface have made operations more intuitive. In addition, the blood gas analyzer has developed from a traditional device that can only judge the acid-base balance to a device that comprehensively monitors critical illness parameters according to the requirements of modern clinical medicine. The system can fully diagnose a patient’s cardiopulmonary function, liver and kidney function, acid-base balance, oxygenation status, and metabolic function. Hospitals have put higher requirements on blood gas analysis techniques in patient care and cost management. Due to the particularity of its test parameters, blood gas analysis requires that samples are determined in the shortest time after sampling and that the data obtained is highly reliable, to help clinicians to make a rapid and accurate diagnosis and take timely and effective treatment. Therefore, blood gas analyzers have gradually developed to have the features such as portability, zero maintenance, easy operation, multi-parameter detection, fast detection, and accurate results. Thus, the POCT blood gas analyzer has shown up. It has dramatically improved the efficiency of clinical diagnosis and treatment and has been accepted by an increasing number of hospitals and doctors. It has become an indispensable device for intensive care units, cardiac care units, operating rooms, emergency departments, respiratory departments, and other departments. Besides, it has become an excellent tool for laboratory diagnosis.