• Complete information about pulmonary gas exchange, acid-base and electrolyte status of the patient is provided by measuring pH, PO2 (partial pressure of oxygen), PCO 2 (partial pressure of carbon dioxide), electrolytes and metabolites on arterial or venous blood.
• Other parameters, such as HCO3 (bicarbonate), TCO2 (total CO2 ), SaO2 (arterial oxygen saturation), AnGap (anion gap) and BE (base excess) can also be calculated using specific formulas.
• Useful monitoring tool to evaluate pulmonary function, blood oxygenation, ventilation and acid-base status of a conscious patient which may be suffering from disease, or of a patient which may be undergoing prolonged anesthesia.

Uses

Alone

• Point-of-care analyzers allow immediated results and guarantee improved diagnostic performance.
• Early therapeutic management is possible with improved and more favorable outcome.
• Furthermore, considering the limitations of techniques such as capnography and pulse oximetry     Anesthesia: intra- and post-operative care  if used alone, blood gas analysis is advised for correct and precise evaluation of ventilation and perfusion in conscious and anesthetized rabbits.

In combination

• Peripheral vasoconstriction and ventilation/perfusion inadequacy do not affect this diagnostic method. This is as opposed to non-invasive techniques such as pulse oximetry and capnography which can be of limited efficacy if used alone in severely ill patients.
• Blood gas analysis will indicate deterioration of SaO2  before any drop is SPO2  can be detected by the pulse oximeter, implying that pulse oximetry alone should not be relied upon to predict SaO2 .
• The correlation between ETCO2 measured via capnography, and PaCO2 obtained via arterial blood gas analysis, is high making capnography a valid monitoring tool. Nevertheless, ETCO2 values in conscious rabbits should be interpreted with caution, especially considering that rabbits are near obligate nasal breathers which tend to readily hyperventilate.
• A capnogram should be evaluated concurrently to identify hyperventilation, white blood gas analysis is performed to properly quantify the PaCO2 .

Other points

• A real indication of the respiratory and metabolic status of a patient can be easily and rapidly obtained.