No one likes surprises at the lab when you are about to get your blood drawn. The picture above is of the older vacutainers blood specimen tubes and a new type of tube that is being introduced. There is currently a change over of blood specimen tubes in laboratories across the country.  Locally we are seeing the use of SARSTEDT tubes/syringes.  This change over is for several reasons. First and foremost is to reduce blood bourne pathogen exposure due to needle sticks and tube breakage. However, these blood specimen tubes offer some additional benefits, especially to people who frequently have lab draws. One of which is the ability to use aspiration of the specimen to decrease the incidence of hemolysis.  Hemolysis skews laboratory studies and damages the red blood cells in the collected specimen causing the need for repeated testing.  Aspiration is also easier on fragile veins due to the decrease pressure versus vacuum. The SARSTEDT tubes are versatile in that they can also be used as a vacuum tube if needed.