What test will hemolysis interfere with?

Question

What test will hemolysis interfere with?

Answer 1

CBC

Complete

Blood

Count

Why?

Answer 2

Hemolysis will also interfere with measuring serum potassium. As the red blood cells (RBC) break up (hemolysis), their intracellular potassium is released into the speciman, and could result in a false positive hyperkalemia.

Not uncommon when people collect serum chemistries to invert the tube a few times vigorously. There is no anticoagulant in those tubes to mix! Treat them gently!

Answer 3

I presume you mean in-vitro haemolysis - after the blood sample has been taken. It will interfere with these chemistry tests: potassium, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), AST, because these substances leak out from the red blood cells, so the results will be falsely high.

It may affect other tests that rely on measuring a colour change, such as bilirubin, creatinine, depending on the method. Each analytical system will come with manufacturer's information that states which substances are affected and at what level - it varies between systems.

Troponin-T cannot be measured in serum/plasma of haemolysed samples though I have never managed to find out the mechanism.