Abstract
Ammonia concentration may increase or decrease due to the
mishandling of blood specimens. Among the factors that affect
ammonia concentration, blood collection, type of anticoagulant,
centrifugation forces, atmosphere and storage temperature. We
focused on the effect of centrifugation forces, type of anti coagulant and the complete filling of the blood collection tube.
Ten male healthy volunteers, each with replicate specimens were used
in this study.
Results show that the use of non hemolysed , non
clotted specimen and prompt centrifugation (1500 X g; 15 minutes)
apparently were important in avoiding such increase in
Ammonia concentration. It was also found that EDTA - Plasma is
preferred over the other anticoagulated specimen for ammonia
determination. Complete filling of the specimen tube was found
to have no significant effect on ammonia concentration. We
concluded that the procedure used for collection and storage of
specimens for ammonia determination should be standardized
and strictly observed