International quality control survey of neurochemical dementia diagnostics.
Currently, neurochemical dementia diagnostics (NDD) are increasingly entering routine clinical neurochemistry, offering improved early and differential diagnosis of dementias. However, there is an obvious lack of standardization in pre-analytical sample handling and systematic quality surveys. Therefore, in this study, 14 laboratories in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland were given aliquots of a human cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sample, and were asked to measure Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers (amyloid beta (Abeta) peptides, total Tau protein, and phosphorylated Tau protein (P-tau(181P))) according to their routine protocols.


RESULTS
The inter-laboratory coefficients of variation of the results obtained by the laboratories participating in this study were in the range of 20-30%. Although the results of this quality control survey are promising, the quality of measurements has to be further optimized.
Lewczuk
Piotr
P
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Beck
Georg
G
Ganslandt
Oliver
O
Esselmann
Hermann
H
Deisenhammer
Florian
F
Regeniter
Axel
A
Petereit
Hela-Felicitas
HF
Tumani
Hayrettin
H
Gerritzen
Andreas
A
Oschmann
Patrick
P
Schröder
Johannes
J
Schönknecht
Peter
P
Zimmermann
Klaus
K
Hampel
Harald
H
Bürger
Katharina
K
Otto
Markus
M
Haustein
Sabine
S
Herzog
Karin
K
Dannenberg
Rainer
R
Wurster
Ulrich
U
Bibl
Mirko
M
Maler
Juan Manuel
JM
Reubach
Udo
U
Kornhuber
Johannes
J
Wiltfang
Jens
J
D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D015415:Biomarkers; D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000592:standards*; D003625:Data Collection; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D010766:Phosphorylation; D011786:Quality Control; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D016875:tau Proteins / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid
D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides; D015415:Biomarkers; D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D016875:tau Proteins