Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
by Dr Amelia Allen, Animal Emergency Service Hobart, Tasmania
When working at an emergency vet practice, we need answers very quickly. This blood gas analyser rapidly provides us key information about the health of the animal. It fills in a lot of blanks.
What’s good about it
When an animal presents that looks very ill, there can be a lot of possible causes. The ABL90 can run a test quickly that will indicate the severity of the condition and the initial treatments we should consider.
If, for example, a patient’s eaten a foreign body and it’s become stuck, there can be major changes in their electrolytes and the pH of their blood. The results of the analyser come through in less than a minute and we can start correcting these changes and start the diagnostic process.
It’s also a very good monitoring tool. We can start a treatment and then recheck regularly with the ABL90 to see how our treatment is progressing and if the patient is improving.
It’s a relatively simple unit to operate and the tests can be completed using a very small amount of blood. Some training is required, particularly around the preparation of the sample, but it’s all very fast once you know how to do it. The unit needs to be calibrated for different species. The program will identify any samples it believes are incorrect.
What’s not so good
We get a lot of use out of this machine as we’re an emergency vet practice. A general vet probably doesn’t have as much need and may not be able to justify the cost. It works with very small amounts of blood but this means it’s easy for the sample to become contaminated. Care must be taken throughout the entire process.
