Quality control for nucleic acid tests: common ground and special issues.
Traditional clinical laboratory quality control practices are being applied to new technologies for the detection and quantitation of nucleic acids in clinical samples, often with limited knowledge of the probability for clinically significant error detection or for false run rejection of such practices. This article reviews traditional quality control practices, discusses the possibilities for a more rational approach to quality control for nucleic acid tests and suggests some steps that can lead to quality improvement for these tests.
Garrett
P E
PE
BBI Clinical Laboratories, New Britain, CT 06053, USA. pgarrett@bbii.com
D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000592:standards*; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000175:diagnosis; D006505:Hepatitis / Q000175:diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D009696:Nucleic Acids / Q000032:analysis*; D011786:Quality Control; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D019562:Viral Load
D009696:Nucleic Acids; D012367:RNA, Viral