A 48-year-old female patient has been admitted to the emergency department with the following arterial blood gas results:

This is just a classic ABG interpretation question. You likely won’t see many of these on the TMC Exam because at this point, the NBRC will assume that you already know how to interpret ABGs. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have made it this far.

With that said, you still absolutely MUST know how to interpret them because you will be required to do so for SEVERAL questions on the exam.

So now let’s go ahead and interpret this one. The pH is increased, which means alkalosis. The PaCO2 is decreased and the bicarbonate level is normal. That means that the interpretation is acute respiratory alkalosis with normal oxygenation. The correct answer is D.

The correct answer is: D. Respiratory alkalosis.