EFEITO DOS ANTICOAGULANTES EDTA E HEPARINA SOBRE A FRAGILIDADE OSMÓTICA HERITROCITÁRIA EM AMOSTRAS DE SANGUE DE GALINHAS (Gallus gallus domesticus)

Abstract

The clinical examination in birds is very limited and provides little information on the health status of the animals because the clinical signs in birds are usually nonspecific. In this context, complementary laboratory tests become essential in the clinical evaluation of this group of an-imals. In addition to using laboratory tests in the clinic of wild birds, it is also possible to inten-sify their use in poultry, since in parallel to the growth of poultry activity, there was a great development regarding diagnostic exams, however, aspects related to physiology and clinical-laboratory tests have been poorly studied. The hemogram is the routine laboratory test that aims to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate the red and white blood cells of the patients, so it is important to know the non-pathological factors that can lead to variations in the haematological parameters of the animals. One of these factors is the choice of handling and storing samples. The most commonly used anticoagulants are EDTA, heparin and sodium citrate, they have dif-ferent forms of action and different ways of changing haematological parameters. One of the ways to evaluate the changes caused by anticoagulants is the erythrocyte osmotic fragility test. Thus, the present study had the objective of evaluating which anticoagulant has a greater action in the increase of erythrocyte membrane fragility. Ten animals of the species Gallus gallus domesticus, of the lineage Hy-line brown, 2 kg of average weight and average age of 19 weeks were used. The animals were punctured from the basilic vein, where 2.5 ml samples were col-lected and distributed in 5 tubes containing 15 μl of the different anticoagulants: Heparin 5000 IU, EDTA 3%, EDTA 5%, EDTA 3% and a tube without anticoagulant (control). Eight aliquots of 10 μl of the tubes were drawn and dispensed into tubes containing 1 ml of buffered saline in different concentrations: 0.00; 0.05; 0.15; 0.25; 0.35; 0.45; 0.55; 0.65. The samples were cen-trifuged and hemoglobin was dosed into the supernatant. There was no significant difference between the solutions, however, the highest hemoglobin levels in the supernatant were observed in the samples conditioned with heparin 5000UI, with a significant difference in relation to the control group thus demonstrating a greater hemolytic action on the samples.