Raccomandazioni per il prelievo di sangue venoso

Venous blood collection is an essential procedure for in vitro diagnostics, because it represents the first step to obtain a biological material suitable for analysis. Venipuncture is one of the most ancient medical practices, used since ancient times. Despite some laboratory errors might still occur in the analytical phase, most of them arise on activities that precede (preanalytical phase) or follow (postanalytical phase) sample testing. In particular, a percentage ranging from 60 to 70% of errors occur in the preanalytical phase, particularly in those activities where the human involvement is still necessary (i.e. during venous blood collection). Therefore, consistent with the inevitable subjectivity, and with variables related to both the environment and the patient, the collection of suitable samples require implementation of appropriate and standardized procedures, whenever possible. On behalf of the Italian Society of Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SIBioC), the Italian Society of Laboratory Medicine (SIMeL) and the Italian Committee for Standardization and Hematological and Laboratory Methods (CISMEL), the intersociety Study Group on "Standardization of extra-analytical variability of laboratory data" has drafted a document to provide guidance in the form of recommendations defined by the method of consensus conference, on the proper development of the procedure for collecting venous blood samples.