Comparison of optical and mechanical clot detection for routine coagulation testing in a large volume clinical laboratory.

Hemostasis instrumentation has rapidly advanced and laboratories are demanding fully automated coagulation systems. Two distinct technological families exist based on optical and mechanical clot detection methodologies. Until now, there have been no comprehensive studies to determine whether one methodology is superior to the other. In order to answer this question, we conducted a large clinical study performing standard coagulation testing on more than 2,000 clinical samples randomly chosen from a high-volume laboratory in a tertiary care hospital. Results demonstrated that photo-optical clot detection and electro-mechanical detection systems were highly correlated (r-squared values >or= 0.96 for all assays) Correlation between the two clot detection systems was maintained even when measuring turbid samples (r-squared values >or= 0.98 for all assays).