Routine serum lipid analysis in New Zealand.
For two years pairs of serum specimens with a wide range of cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations were regularly dispatched each month to all New Zealand medical laboratories known to measure blood lipids. Four weeks after specimen dispatch each laboratory received a report which displayed all results along with the overall means, standard deviations, and results from "reference laboratories". Six-monthly summaries were prepared for each laboratory in which the previous 12 results were compared with the corresponding "target values" by regression analysis. This allowed classification of inaccuracy into one or more of three categories. Random error (imprecision) explained most of the discrepancies, but systematic errors also contributed strongly to the observed interlaboratory variation. No single class of laboratories performed significantly differently from any others. Approximately 60 percent of the 16000 cholesterol analyses done each month in New Zealand, and 40 percent of the 10000 triglyceride analyses, are performed with precision thought to be adequate for clinical usage.
D002784:Cholesterol / Q000097:blood* / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D007753:Laboratories / Q000592:standards*; D009520:New Zealand; D012044:Regression Analysis; D014280:Triglycerides / Q000097:blood* / Q000592:standards
D014280:Triglycerides; D002784:Cholesterol