Analytical quality control of cadmium and lead in blood and cadmium in urine: results of its implementation during a five-year epidemiological study.
Quality-control programmes are very important in assessing the reliability of biological analyses. Such programmes are essential if misleading results in epidemiological studies dealing with low levels of exposure to heavy metals present in the general environment (e.g., cadmium, lead) are to be avoided. Internal and external quality-control programmes for the measurement of cadmium and lead in blood and of cadmium in urine were implemented from 1985 to 1989 in support of a national epidemiological study, Cadmibel (2327 participants), conducted in Belgium to assess the effects of environmental exposure to cadmium and lead on the general population. Apart from these programmes, inter-comparisons between the two participating laboratories were carried out on 10% of the samples. The results of these quality-control programmes met external acceptability criteria, emphasizing the analytical proficiency of these measurements at the relatively low concentrations in the Cadmibel study.
Claeys
F
F
Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Epidemiology Unit, Brussels, Belgium.
Ducoffre
G
G
Sartor
F
F
Roels
H
H
D002104:Cadmium / Q000097:blood* / Q000652:urine*; D002105:Cadmium Poisoning / Q000453:epidemiology; D002623:Chemistry Techniques, Analytical / Q000592:standards*; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D007854:Lead / Q000097:blood*; D011786:Quality Control; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
D002104:Cadmium; D007854:Lead