Vacutainer sst 2 tubes

All participants recruited for this study were patients at the Mount Sinai Clinical Immunology Faculty Practice. Serum from patients with CVID (1 (link), 2 (link)), patients with XLA (1 (link)), and healthy controls were drawn into 6 mL gold top rubber-sealed sterile Vacutainer SST II tubes (BD Diagnostics). Baseline patient characteristics are summarized in Table 1. In the CVID cohort, autoimmunity/inflammatory complications included lymphoid hyperplasia/splenomegaly (n = 52), hematologic autoimmunity (autoimmune hemolytic anemia and/or immune thrombocytopenic purpura, n = 38), chronic lung disease (interstitial lung disease and/or granulomatous lung disease, n = 35), enteropathy (n = 33), and granulomas (n = 26). The tubes were maintained in the upright position until the serum was aseptically removed in a sterile hood for bacterial and other assays.

LC and control samples were collected
at three different Spanish hospitals. Blood samples were obtained
by venipuncture of the antecubital region after 8 h of fasting and
collected in BD Vacutainer SST II tubes with a gel separator and Advance
vacuum system. The samples were immediately cooled and protected from
light for 30 min to allow for clot retraction. After centrifugation
(2057g for 10 min), serum samples were aliquoted
in Eppendorf tubes and frozen at −80 °C until analysis.
Samples were divided into 4 groups: a control group of healthy
people (CONTROL, 35 samples), a group of preoperative NSCLC patients
(PRE, 48 samples), and two groups of postoperative LC patients 1 month
(POSTA, 15 samples) and 3–6 months after surgery (POSTB, 17
samples). Clinical data are shown in Table S1 in the Supporting Information.

We conducted a prospective observational study in patients with cirrhosis and non-infected ascitic fluid (AF) consecutively admitted or followed at our Hospital from January 2014 to January 2016.
Exclusion criteria were the presence of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) or infections, multinodular hepatocellular carcinoma, portal thrombosis, alcoholic hepatitis, previous liver transplantation or previous transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt. SBP was defined as the presence of >250 polymorphonuclear cells/μL in AF. The Ethics committee of Hospital General Universitario de Alicante approved the study protocol, and all patients gave informed consent to participate in the study. All methods described herein were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.
Blood and AF were obtained from all patients at admission and analyzed for routine biochemical and cytological studies. Blood and AF cultures were performed in all cases. Aliquots of blood and AF were inoculated under aseptic conditions in sterile, rubber-sealed Vacutainer SST II tubes (BD Diagnostics, Belgium) that were never exposed to free air.
Patients were followed-up for 6 months. Incidence of infections, successive hospitalizations and mortality were registered.

Arterialized venous and deep-venous blood samples were collected for determination of whole-blood glucose, plasma amino acid concentrations and stable isotope enrichments, and serum insulin and NEFA concentrations. Therefore, one part of every sample (1 mL) was collected in a BD Vacutainer^® fluoride/oxalate tube, rolled on a tube roller for 2 min to inhibit glycolysis, and subsequently analysed for whole blood glucose concentrations (YSI 2500 blood glucose analyser, Xylem Analytics UK, Tunbridge Wells, UK). A second part (5 mL) was collected in BD Vacutainer^® SST II tubes, which were left to clot at room temperature for ≥30 min and then centrifuged at 2,500g at 4°C for 10 min to obtain serum samples. Arterialized serum samples were used to determine insulin concentrations (Human insulin ELISA kit, DX-EIA-2935; Oxford Biosystems Ltd, Milton Park, UK). Serum NEFA concentrations were measured spectrophotometrically in arterialized venous and deep-venous serum samples (FA115 kit, Randox Laboratories Ltd, Crumlin, UK). A third part of every sample (4 mL) was collected in BD Vacutainer^® PST Lithium Heparin tubes and immediately centrifuged at 2,500g at 4°C for 10 min to obtain plasma samples. Plasma amino acid concentrations and L-[ring-²H₅]phenylalanine enrichments were analysed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry as described previously [6 ].

Blood was collected after eight hours of fasting on EDTA Vacutainer tubes (Becton Dickinson, Le Pont-de-Claix, France), immediately centrifuged (delay < 4 h) and plasma was frozen at -80 °C on several aliquots until analysis. Insulinemia were measured using electrochemiluminescence immunoassay “ECLIA” on Cobas e602 analyzer from Roche (Roche diagnostic, Meylan, France) using Roche reagent kits and calibrators. Insulinemia was determined from plasma aliquot never thawed. Lower detection limit was 0.2 µU/mL (1.39 pmol/L) and intra-and inter-assay was < 1.5% and < 5%, respectively. Blood triglycerides, HDL, LDL, and total cholesterol levels were quantified on the Cobas8000/e502© analyzer from serum collected into SST II Vacutainer tubes (Becton Dickinson). The determination of the other markers has been previously described^{5 (link)}.