The Accuracy of a Tabletop Blood Chemistry System on Healthy, Young Adults

The growing public awareness regarding the relationship between elevated cholesterol levels and coronary artery disease (CAD), paired with the rapid technological advances in the health field, have led to a rising demand for quickly and easily implemented cholesterol screenings such as those seen at health promotion fairs and worksites. Manufacturers have responded to this demand by releasing tabletop lipid analyzers, thought to be highly accurate, which allow for simple analysis of blood lipids. The Cholestech L.D-X (Cholestech Corp., Hayward, California) is a compact system that allows for whole blood and serum full-lipid analyses. Although numerous studies are available regarding other compact lipid analyzers, ]-5 only three are published in reference to the LoDoX system. 5-7 Of these three studies, only one has looked at a specific population, v but it did not use the standard finger-stick protocol as described by the manufacturer. Therefore, this study set out to determine whether measured total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and triglyceride (TG) levels obtained from whole blood and serum analyses on the tabletop system were comparable to those values obtained using a standard venipuncture technique in a healthy population. The comparison was made using methods consistent with those suggested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Lipid Standardization Program as a reference. In addition to comparing TC, HDL, and TG measuremerits, the calculations for low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and TC/HDL were also examined.