European journal of clinical chemistry and clinical biochemistry : journal of the Forum of European Clinical Chemistry Societies
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Eur J Clin Chem Clin Biochem · Apr 1997
Accuracy of cholesterol measurements in Italian clinical laboratories. Joint project GISSI prevention--Italian Society of Clinical Biochemistry. SIBioC GISSI Prevenzione Group.
We report the results of an external quality assessment scheme for serum total cholesterol measurement involving about 100 Italian laboratories participating in an epidemiological study of post myocardial infarction. Two frozen human serum pools with Abell-Kendall assigned values are distributed quarterly at the laboratories (up to now seven events occurred); the obtained results are evaluated and discussed. ⋯ But, while precision (calculated on the six replicates of exercise # 5) is good (90% of the laboratories obtained CV < 3%), inaccuracy problems are evident in every event. Indeed the mean bias from the reference method value ranged from 1.54 and 3.49% in the various events.