Background: Obtaining a venous blood sample from infants and children can be a painful and traumatic procedure. It has been suggested that capillary blood samples can serve as substitutes for venous blood samples to diagnose anemia. However, few data exist about the correlation between the laboratory results obtained using capillary and venous blood samples. This study was performed to determine if the results from the LC-178CRP^TM are the same as the results from a conventional hematology analyzer using venous blood.
Methods: After informed consent was obtained, paired venous and capillary blood sample were collected simultaneously from 104 children (M：F=50：54). The capillary blood was analyzed using the LC- 178CRP^TM, and venous blood was analyzed using an automatic hematology analyzer. The following were compared from capillary and venous samples: CBC, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), red cell distribution width (RDW), and platelet count. The results were analyzed by Pearson's correlation and the Bland Altman Plot method.
Result: The hemoglobin values were similar between the two groups of samples and had a high coefficient correlation (r=0.877). White blood cells, hematocrit, MCV, and MCH also had a significant correlation between capillary and venous blood samples. Based on the Bland-Altman method, the agreement between the two methods was considered good.
Conclusion: The hematologic results from the capillary blood had a close correlation with the conventional venous method, including white blood cell count, and hemoglobin, MCV, and MCH levels. The LC-178CRP^TM should be considered as an alternative for venous blood sampling for the tested parameters in children. (Korean J Hematol 2009;44:237-243.)

Keywords: Vessel, Blood, Hemoglobin, Hematocrit, Erythrocyte indices