Medical Assistant Certification (MAC) AMCA Practice Exam

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What color tube is commonly used for blood tests that require serum?

Lavender
Green
Red
Yellow

The correct answer is: Red

The red tube is commonly used for blood tests that require serum because it contains no additives or anticoagulants. When blood is drawn into a red top tube, it is allowed to clot and then the clot is removed by centrifugation, leaving the serum available for testing. Serum is the liquid part of blood that is obtained after coagulation and does not contain clotting factors. This makes the red tube particularly suitable for a wide variety of laboratory tests that need serum, such as certain biochemical tests and serological analyses. In contrast, other colored tubes have specific additives that are unsuitable for serum tests. For instance, lavender tubes typically contain EDTA, which is an anticoagulant used for hematology tests, while green tubes contain heparin, another type of anticoagulant used primarily for tests requiring plasma. Yellow tubes may contain additives like sodium polyanetholesulfonate or citrate, depending on the specific tests being conducted, but are also not typically used for serum tests. Thus, the red tube stands out as the correct choice for tests that specifically require serum.