Response to letter to the editor

Abstract

We really appreciate your interest in our study published in the last issue of Sao Paulo Medical Journal. We would like to thank you for your comments.We would like to clarify that the aim of our work was exactly to test whether the lactate levels in arterial and venous blood could replace each other. Our results did show that venous peripheral lactate, drawn by venipuncture and not from capillary blood, cannot replace arterial lactate. However, the concordance between central venous and arterial levels was reasonable.This suggests that, in clinical practice, both can be used.