At a glance
| Analyte | Glucose |
|---|---|
| Also called | FBS, Fasting blood sugar, RBS, Blood sugar |
| Method | Glucose oxidase (GOD-POD), enzymatic colorimetric |
| Sample type | Serum, Plasma |
| Panel | Diabetes |
| Discipline | Clinical chemistry |
| Brand | Mindray |
What Glucose measures
Glucose measurement underpins the diagnosis and the day-to-day management of diabetes. The same analyte is reported under several request names depending on how the sample was taken: fasting after an overnight fast, random at any time, or as a series during an oral glucose tolerance test where the patient is loaded with a measured dose and sampled at intervals. Those are not different assays but different sampling protocols, and the reagent is the same for all of them. One pre-analytical point dominates everything else here: glucose is consumed by the cells in the tube after collection, so a sample left unseparated reads progressively lower than the patient’s true value.
How Philippine laboratories run it
Written as FBS on Philippine request forms far more often than as glucose, and included in essentially every annual physical examination and pre-employment panel, which makes it one of the steadiest high-volume assays on the bench. The Philippines also has a substantial antenatal screening workload, and each oral glucose tolerance test consumes several determinations on one patient rather than one, so a laboratory serving obstetric clinics gets through this reagent considerably faster than its patient count suggests. Laboratories should plan for that multiplier explicitly rather than scaling from request numbers.
Analyzers it runs on
* BA-88A: Semi-automated: assay parameters are entered manually at setup.
Calibrator, controls and companion tests
Delivered with its calibrator, both control levels and the rest of the diabetes panel, on the same schedule as Glucose.
Storage and handling
Refrigerated and kept closed when off the analyzer.
Buying Glucose in the Philippines
Glucose is supplied for the BS-600M, BS-430, BS-360E, BS-240Pro, BS-230 and BA-88A. We deliver it with Multi-Sera Calibrator and Chemistry Control Level 1, because a run held up waiting on a separate order costs the same shift a stock-out does. Delivery is scheduled against your monthly Glucose count, so the bench is not rationing tests in the last week of the month. How we plan clinical chemistry supply.
Questions about Glucose
Is FBS the same test as glucose?
It is the same analyte and the same reagent. Fasting blood sugar simply specifies that the sample was drawn after a fast, which is what makes the result interpretable against diagnostic thresholds. Random blood sugar and the samples in an oral glucose tolerance test use the identical reagent and differ only in how and when the specimen was collected.
Why do delayed samples give a lower glucose result?
Because the cells in the tube keep metabolising glucose after the blood is drawn. In an unseparated sample the concentration falls steadily, so a specimen that sat before processing will read below the patient’s true value. Separate promptly or collect into a tube containing a glycolysis inhibitor. This is the single most common preventable error affecting glucose results.
Order Glucose
Tell us your monthly Glucose volume and we will quote a supply schedule for BS-600M. We reply within one business day.
Request a quotation