Impact of preheparinization and sample volume on routine hematology findings in healthy cats.

These results indicate that a 0.5 ml preheparinized EDTA blood sample can generate clinically useful hematologic data (excluding platelet count) in cats, using a bench-top analyzer. Our findings support the collection of a single small (<2 ml) sample that can be used for both biochemical and hematologic analyses. Further studies are needed to verify these findings using other hematology machines and in diseased cats.