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Hematocrit
or packed cell volume is the amount of packed red blood cell following
centrifuzation , expressed as a percentage of the total blood volume. Two
method are available for determining hematocrit.
a)
Microhematocrit Method
b)
Macro hematocrit Method
Specimen
:-
Only anti coagulated blood EDTA blood is used
in determination Hct value.
Equipment
:-
a) Wintrobe hematocrit
tube 110 mm long narrow test tube graduted from 0-10 cm(100mm). the scale with
the marking in ascending order from the to is used for ESR determination while
the scale with descending order is used for Hct determination
b) Transfer pipette a
long fine capillary pasteure pipette
c) Centri fuge
Procedure
:-
1)
The
blood specimen is mixed carefully
2)
The
wintrobe tube is marked labeled with the
identify number of the patient
3)
The
tube is filled with blood specimen by the help of pasteure pipette up to the 10
cm marked which blood or taken as blank to balance the centrifuge
4)
The
wintrobe tube are placed in the opposite cups of the centrifuge
5)
The
centrifuge is turned on to slow speed the increase gradually to bring up
finally the required speed.
6)
The
tube are centrifuge for 30 minutes at 3000 rpm ( Revolution per minute)
7)
After
30 minute centrifuge is switched off and left it self to stop spilling.
8)
The
wintrobe tube is taken out and observed that the blood sample has been lower portion of tube and plasma above. It
the amount of packed RBC are read directly from the graduation mark of the
tube.