In coag collections, every detail counts
September 2021—Rare wine? Delectable. Rara avis? Magnificent. Rare blue-top collection tube? Uh oh. For Richard Marlar, PhD, coming across a non-FDA-approved tube was an unhappy discovery. Dr. Marlar, medical director, coagulation laboratory, University of New Mexico Hospital, says his lab was among the first to encounter one of these rogue tubes, available for purchase on the internet and likely taking wing due to pandemic supply shortages. When the tube arrived for testing, it quickly kindled concerns, says Dr. Marlar. “It’s a tube we had never seen before. It looks like it has a CE mark on it, and the Europeans don’t know anything about it. It has a label on it that suggests it’s FDA approved—but the FDA is not aware of it,” he says, adding that his lab has spoken with the agency. It feels like a “CSI”-tinged moment in a venue that labs would prefer to keep drama-free. It also points to the ongoing need to keep a keen eye on what passes through coagulation laboratories. It’s not so much that the devil is in the details; rather, that’s where accurate results lie.