Evaluation on the accuracy of erythrocyte count and its associate paremeters measured by ear lobe and finger tip blood

Objective To assess the accuracy of erythrocyte count and its associate paremeters measured by ear lobe and finger tip blood.Methods Blood of ear lobe,finger tip and vein from 30 healthy volunteers were collected and their erythrocyte count(RBC),haemoglobin(Hb),haematocrit(Hct) were examined and compared.Results No significant differences in RBC,Hb or Hct between finger tip and vein blood samples were found(P0.05),but there demonstrated a significantly higher RBC,Hb and Hct in ear lobe blood than those in vein blood(P0.01),and approximately 6.1% and 6.1% higher when quantified this difference of RBC and Hb respectively.No significant differences were found of mean corpuscular hemoglobin(MCH),mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration(MCHC) and red blood cell volume distribution width(RDW) among ear lobe,finger tip and vein blood samples except mean corpuscular volume(MCV).Conclusions RBC,Hb or Hct of finger tip blood samples are equivalent to those of vein,but RBC,Hb or Hct of ear lobe are higher than those of vein,and need to be corrected in clinical practice.