Fast blood impedance measurements as quality indicators in the pre-analytical phase to prevent laboratory errors

In clinical laboratories the major quantity of errors regarding blood analyses occurs in the pre-analytical phase. Pre-analytical conditions are key necessary factors to maintain the high quality of specimens, to limit day-to-day and batch variations and to guarantee the absolute reliability and accuracy of clinical results and related diagnoses. The quality of the serum samples would have to be very high in order to avoid interferences due to hemolysis, preventing measurement errors. In addition, the quality of blood should be always monitored in a fast way to identify inadequacies and guarantee their complete usability in transfusion procedures. In a near future the solution could be supplying laboratories with smart and portable devices able to rapidly perform quality tests for every samples. Electrical impedance has a relevant potential in analyzing and monitoring blood quality. In this context, we propose a new simple impedance-based biosensor as a possible solution in the pre-analytical phase to efficiently perform fast impedance measurements, useful indicators to check the quality of the samples, ensuring the reliability of results and preventing laboratory errors. This sensor has been applied for the discrimination of different blood components, the identification of hemolysis in serum and the evaluation of blood consistency.