8-step guide to ABG Analysis using the Tic-Tac-Toe Method
Learn how to interpret blood gases (ABGs) like a pro!
Once you’re confident you’ve learnt how to interpret Blood Gases, try out the quiz.
When is ABG useful to investigate oxygenation?
Almost never. For patients with an adequate oximetry waveform, pulse oximetry is usually superior to ABG for measuring oxygenation. ABG is only useful to investigate oxygenation when: Pulse oximetry waveform is unreliable. Diagnosis of methemoglobinemia. Calculation of the PaO2/FiO2 ratio to guide a specific therapeutic decision.
Blood gas measurements in DKA
Guidelines recommend checking an ABG or VBG in all patients with DKA.  This practice is not evidence-based and should be abandoned. ABG or VBG provides little information about whether or not the patient has DKA (beyond what is already known from the serum chemistries). Rather than pH, serum bicarbonate may be used to gauge the severity of […]
Keep Calm AND Get a Venous Blood Gas
Unless you want to know a patient’s oxygenation (because your pulse oximeter has failed), stop turning your patient into a pin cushion looking for the radial artery and get a venous blood gas
Sodium bicarbonate therapy in DKA…DO NO HARM!!!
Sodium bicarbonate therapy in DKA (or any other acidosis for that matter) is associated with risks that outweigh NO BENEFITS…DO NO HARM!!! Neither a recent systematic review nor the largest single retrospective cohort of severe DKA support routine use of bicarbonate therapy in DKA Bicarbonate is associated with risk of cerebral oedema and prolonged hospitalisation […]
