Plastic tubes for serologic testing

[JClausen]

Does anyone have experience in the use of plastic tubes for ABORh, antibody screen, crossmatches, etc...or how to validate the change to a different tube?

Thanks.

[OPUS104]

VERY STUPID question on my part here............are the tubes crystal clear??????????????

[Mary]

Do you mean test tubes or collection tubes?

[JClausen]

Yes, the tubes are supposed to be crystal clear and yes the question relates to the testing, not collection.

Well, I just received a batch of these tubes, and they are clear, but many scratches which I think can interfere with tibe reading and resuspension, but will try them out.

[Mabel Adams]

Watch out for static electricity too.

[John C. Staley]

For years, in a previous life, we used the MLA system for batch typing. I won't go into detail describing the system but simply put, the tubes used were plastic and they worked great until we switched from glass pasteur pipettes to plastic pipettes. Then static electricity became a major issue. We ended up grounding the workstation, putting a grounded mat on the floor for the staff to either stand on or have their chair on and we still experience problems.

What would happen is you would have a drop about half formed at the end of the pipette and it would suddenly go zinging (real word!!) off the end of the pipetted and stick to the wall of the tube about half way down.

Not sure if they have re-formulated the plastic tube to avoid this problem but you might want to watch for it.