Types of Blood Collection Tubes
Vacuum blood collection tubes are disposable negative pressure vacuum tubes that allow for quantitative blood collection. They need to be used with venous blood collection needles. Due to their simple operation, cleanliness, safety, accuracy, and reliability, they are widely used in hospitals.
The cap of the blood collection tube uses internationally standardized color codes to distinguish the components of additives and the purpose of the blood collection tube, thereby avoiding errors in blood collection and testing.
Red-top: Additive-free tube
The red-top blood tubes are used for biochemical, immunological, serological, and various virus tests in medical examinations. The inner wall is specially treated to be extremely smooth, preventing solutions, cells, and fibrin from adhering to the inner wall. This provides an ample amount of uncontaminated serum specimens for clinical testing and maintains the normal components of serum for a long time, facilitating serum retesting with good repeatability.
Orange: Coagulation tube
This type of blood collection tube contains specialized coagulants for rapid provision of complete serum in clinical examinations, widely used in emergency biochemical and immunological tests. The specialized coagulants are evenly coated on the entire inner wall of the blood collection tube, maximizing the contact area with the blood. They do not dissolve in serum or exchange substances with cells, have minimal competitive adsorption with proteins, maximize serum yield, and ensure serum quality.
Yellow: Coagulation tube
This blood collection tube contains specialized coagulants and separation gel, with good heat resistance and chemical stability, used for collecting blood specimens for biochemical and immunological examinations in medical testing. The high-quality coagulant in these tubes completely clots blood within 5-8 minutes, producing high-quality serum through centrifugation. This solves problems such as blood cell clotting and rupture, hemolysis, and fibrin precipitation, meeting the requirements of rapid outpatient and emergency serum biochemical tests.
Green: Heparin tube
Green-top blood collection tubes contain heparin anticoagulants in the form of sodium or lithium salts, used for collecting clinical blood plasma, emergency biochemistry, hemorheology measurements, and trace element blood specimens. It has minimal interference with blood components, quickly separates plasma, and has a wide operating temperature range.
Black: ESR tube
The sodium citrate concentration required for the ESR test is: anticoagulant to blood ratio of 1:4. It can be used with various brands of ESR analyzers. Due to the small blood collection volume and low tube negative pressure, the blood collection time is relatively long. Patience is required to wait until the blood stops flowing into the blood collection tube, then invert and mix 5-8 times to thoroughly mix the anticoagulant and blood. Improper mixing can cause hemolysis, coagulation, or air bubbles, affecting test results.
Blue: Coagulation tube
Used for coagulation tests, sodium citrate mainly acts as an anticoagulant by chelating calcium ions in the blood sample. The anticoagulant to blood sample ratio is set at 1:9, accurately ensuring the effectiveness of test results and avoiding misdiagnosis. To minimize activation of the extrinsic coagulation mechanism caused by test tube materials, the blue-top tube has undergone a unique stress film treatment on the inner wall.
Purple: Hematology tube
Contains EDTA anticoagulant, used for clinical hematology examinations, cross-matching, blood type identification, glycosylated hemoglobin, etc., and is suitable for various blood cell analyzers. It provides comprehensive protection for blood cells, especially platelets, effectively preventing platelet aggregation and protecting the morphology and volume of blood cells from being affected for a long time.
Currently, the use of vacuum blood collection systems is quite common. The use of vacuum blood collection tubes provides rapid specimen testing, reduces the impact on blood results, reports results in the shortest time possible, reduces the risk of cross-infection and other biological safety hazards, standardizes blood collection techniques in the laboratory, improves the quality of test specimens, and facilitates patient care.
