American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians
Abstract
The aim of the current study was to compare feline hematologic variables in blood collected in
microcapillary tubes (20 ml) and conventional blood tubes with the Medonic CA620/530 Vet in-house
hematologic analyzer. A comparison of results obtained in 60 cats presented at the clinics of the veterinary
school showed that the correlations between the 2 methods were 0.97 for white blood cell, 0.95 for red blood
cell, and 0.93 for platelet counts; 0.92 for hemoglobin concentration; and 0.99 for mean corpuscular volume.
No clinically relevant differences between the 2 blood sampling techniques were observed for any variable,
which suggests that both techniques are interchangeable in cats. Moreover, microcapillary tubes would allow
easier repeated sampling in the same cat and would likely be useful in other small species