The need for greater safety, expedited specimen collections, and accuracy in the blood-to-additives ratio led to the invention of the evacuated specimen collection tube. It was invented in 1947 by Joseph Kleiner. He named it the Evacutainer. In 1949 he assigned it to Becton Dickinson. When Becton Dickinson first placed the renamed “Vacutainer” on the market, the tubes were packaged and shipped in vacuum tins similar to coffee cans. Until the early 1970s, Becton Dickinson was the only manufacturer of evacuated tubes. "Vacuette" collection system is another evacuated tube system available from Greiner Bio-One. Today there are three major evacuated tube manufacturers in the United States. There is a fourth company that does not manufacture evacuated tubes per se but their products can be used in aspiration mode to simulate evacuation.
Vacuette image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
