Towards evidence based emergency medicine: best BETs from the Manchester Royal Infirmary. BET 1: Brachial arterial blood sampling: safe or not?

A shortcut review was carried out to establish whether brachial artery puncture is safe in patients requiring arterial blood sampling. 47 papers were found using the reported searches, of which one presented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of this paper are tabulated. It is concluded that brachial artery puncture is likely to be safe in the non-shocked patient who is not on concurrent anticoagulant therapy.