Recommendations for detection and management of unsuitable samples in clinical laboratories.
A large body of evidence attests that quality programs developed around the analytical phase of the total testing process would only produce limited improvements, since the large majority of errors encountered in clinical laboratories still prevails within extra-analytical areas of testing, especially in manually intensive preanalytical processes. Most preanalytical errors result from system flaws and insufficient audit of the operators involved in specimen collection and handling responsibilities, leading to an unacceptable number of unsuitable specimens due to misidentification, in vitro hemolysis, clotting, inappropriate volume, wrong container or contamination from infusive routes. Detection and management of unsuitable samples are necessary to overcome this variability. The present document, issued by the Italian Inter-society SIBioC-SIMeL-CISMEL (Society of Clinical Biochemistry and Clinical Molecular Biology-Italian Society of Laboratory Medicine-Italian Committee for Standardization of Hematological and Laboratory Methods) Study Group on Extra-analytical Variability, reviews the major causes of unsuitable specimens in clinical laboratories, providing consensus recommendations for detection and management.
Lippi
Giuseppe
G
Sezione di Chimica Clinica, Dipartimento di Scienze Morfologico-Biomediche, Università degli Studi di Verona, Verona, Italy. ulippi@tin.it
Banfi
Giuseppe
G
Buttarello
Mauro
M
Ceriotti
Ferruccio
F
Daves
Massimo
M
Dolci
Alberto
A
Caputo
Marco
M
Giavarina
Davide
D
Montagnana
Martina
M
Miconi
Valentino
V
Milanesi
Bruno
B
Mosca
Andrea
A
Morandini
Margherita
M
Salvagno
Gian Luca
GL
D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D007753:Laboratories / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013048:Specimen Handling