Venous and fingertip blood to calculate plasma volume shift following exercise.

This study determined whether fingertip blood samples used to calculate percentage change in calculated plasma volume following exercise were in agreement with values obtained from venous blood samples. Twenty-five subjects engaged in two cycle ergometer exercises at 100 and 200 W, with percentage plasma volume shift (% PVS) determined after each from venous (VB) and fingertip (FT) blood. Values for % PVS were FT -6.25% compared with VB -8.04% (P less than 0.05), with the correlation between the two methods at r = 0.88. The following equation was established: corrected FT % PVS = (0.8662 * FT) - 2.625; SEE = 2.60%. In order to cross-validate this equation, fifteen additional subjects submitted to VB and FT. Corrected FT % PVS using the established equation resulted in a mean value of 9.53 compared with 10.53% for actual VB % PVS. Although these means were not significantly different, there was approximately a 25% chance that the corrected FT % PVS would be more than one standard error of estimate from the regression line. It was concluded that FT underestimates VB % PVS. However, when limited to group data, FT can be corrected to favorably represent VB % PVS following moderate to heavy cycle ergometer exercise.