hello everyone, how are you all? i hope you are doing well and i am too. Its been so many days that i haven't posted any stuff related to medical and i am going to spend some time on blogging from now onwards. Today we are going to see types of needles that we commonly seen in hospitals and their color coding and gauge and for what they are required.
We will start from smaller gauge to larger gauge needles and their colors.
First of all what is Gauge?
Gauge is a unit which tells the outer diameter of the needle whether it is a wide bore or narrow bore.
The gauge number is given and depending upon gauge number we can understand which is wide bore and which is narrow bore. The higher the gauge number, it has narrow bore and it is thinner. Lower the gauge number, it has wide bore and is thicker.
Lets see syringe needles.....
Color of the needle is PINK.
You can see, back of it has company's name and LOT number and you are seeing something like this 18x1 1/2. so here 18 is the gauge number and 1 1/2 means length of the needle in inches. below it you can see 1.20x38 mm. here 1.20mm is the outer diameter and 38 mm length of needle. And at last there is manufactured date and expired date is printed.
Uses- This needle is used for FNAC of lipoma cases, drawing of large amount of blood sample collection and injecting large volume of medication while giving IM injection.
But it is painful while giving IM injection or withdrawing blood because of its wide bore.
Color is GREEN
This also can be used for FNAC of lipoma cases to aspirate lipoma tissue fragments, can be used for withdrawing blood samples and IM injections. This is the needle which is most commonly used for blood drawing and IM injections in hospitals. It also gives painful sensation like the pink one but less comparable with it.
you can see the syringe with needle is inside this plastic cover and green needles commonly will come along with the syringe. so i opened it and kept needle seperately and took pic which is above image. You can see it is printed as 21GX1.5" (0.80x38mm) and i think you know what it is i already explained above.
The above two needles are used for mainly adults. For pediatrics people those needles are not used as they cause more pain to children and infants.
Color is BLACK
This also can be used for IM injections, blood drawing, FNAC of lipoma cases and from now onwards it can be used for pediatrics group who are elder in it. This needle is also used for thyroid FNAC, lymph node FNAC procedures. It is less painful compared to previous ones.
You can see it is 22x1. It means 22 Gauge and length of the needle is 1 inch which is smaller than the previous two which are pink and green. Also its 0.70x25mm which is less compared to previous one.
Color is BLUE
It is most commonly used for pediatric age group and for withdrawing blood saples and doing FNAC procedure for thyroid, lymph node, superficial swellings. While doing FNAC with this needle it gives good amount of cell aspirate and less blood aspirate. It is less painful compared wit previous all gauge needles.
You can see its same like previous black needle but only gauge number is different. 23x1 and 0.60x25 mm.
Color is VIOLET(PURPLE)
This is same like blue color one it is used for pediatrics and FNAC of thyroid, lymph nodes and superficial swellings to decrease blood aspirate. It is less painful.
You can see only slight difference compared with previous blue one. Its 24x1 and 0.55x25 mm.
Color is BROWN
This is the most common needle which is used for FNAC of thyroid swellings while doing with Ultrasound guided. why because thes lesions in thyroid are very small and depth also will be more. So to achieve that we need a longer and thinner needle, thats why this needle was specially designed. Another reason is thyroid gland is very vascular, to avoid vascular aspirate and bleeding we need thinner needle and biopsy also not possible for thyroid gland due to its vascularity. So thyroid swellings solely depends on FNAC procedure for diagnosis as remaining tissues biopsy can be possible. This needle is less painful, used for intradermal injections like tuberculin and insluin injections.
Not used for blood drawing.
You can see its printed as 26x1 1/2 and 0.45x38 mm.
these are the hypodermic injections most commonly we will see in hospitals.
Thanks for reading,
with regards
