What is this device?
The Qlabs FIB device is about the size of an iphone and allows you to measure the patients functional fibrinogen level rapidly using a drop of blood.
Although this is not really a viscoelastic testing device we have chosen to list it here too as it holds promise to be a very useful rapid point of care device to identify functional fibrinogen deficiency for anyone who manages obstetric haemorrhage. This device was released onto the market during 2023 and we managed to get the Australian rep for Stago to demonstrate it to us here in WA late last year. We tried it out with a sample of my own blood which showed I have a fibrinogen level of 3.5g/L
How do you perform a test?
This is not like a Haemaccue or blood glucose monitor it does not use blood directly from a fingerprick. You need to fill a citrated tube (blue tube) with a sample of your patients venous blood. Then using a very small specialised pipette you take a drop of this citrated blood and place it onto the reagent test strip (previously inserted into the base of the device). After about 3-10 min it will displays a result, with low fibrinogen results being displayed quite quickly.
Where might this device be used?
If you work in a smaller hospital without access to VET devices or in the prehospital setting this device might well be ideal. It is small, portable, significantly cheaper than a VET however it only assesses one aspect of haemostasis unlike VET devices and other laboratory coagulation tests. We have learnt over the years from using ROTEM that in the majority of bleeding patients that if you were only able to measure one parameter in the majority of situations that would be the fibrinogen level.
Caveat
At this time (Feb 2024) this device has only been validated in one study where 110 citrated blood samples sent to the lab for traditional fibrinogen levels (Clauss method) were also assessed using this device. This device still needs to be assessed when used in real life clinical situations involving bleeding patients to assess its accuracy and reliability in this setting.
Links
Stago Quantra – Point of Care Haemostasis Analyser
