title: The quality of laboratory aspects of troponin testing in clinical practice guidelines and consensus documents needs to be improved.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The European Federation of Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) and the Union of European Medical Specialists (UEMS) joint Working Group on guidelines recently proposed a checklist to help standardize the description of laboratory investigations in clinical practice guidelines (CPG).
  
  
  METHODS
  Nine CPGs or consensus documents published from 2011 to 2013 describing the investigation of chest pain, diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome, or myocardial infarction were evaluated against the published checklist.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Clinical use of troponin analysis are commonly dealt with but the publications present variable, vague and sometimes conflicting information regarding this laboratory test being very much relied on upon making a diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome. Most of the laboratory related checklist items are not considered or need to be updated e.g. suggested analytical quality goals are not applicable for the high sensitive assays and important interferences that may lead to false positive or negative diagnoses are commonly not mentioned.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current paper sums up important analytical and biological issues related to troponin assays and gives suggestions for analytical quality goals that could be included in CPG's.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Clinical Biochemistry, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway; The Norwegian Clinical Chemistry EQA Program, Bergen, Norway; The European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and European Union of Medical Specialists joint working group on Guidelines. Electronic address: kristin.moberg.aakre@helse-bergen.no.
authors.forename: Kristin M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Aakre
authors.affiliation: The European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and European Union of Medical Specialists joint working group on Guidelines; Department of Laboratory Medicine, AZ St-Jan Hospital, Bruges, Belgium.
authors.forename: Michel R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Langlois
authors.affiliation: The European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and European Union of Medical Specialists joint working group on Guidelines; Clinical Blood Sciences, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Julian H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Barth
authors.affiliation: The European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and European Union of Medical Specialists joint working group on Guidelines; Diabetes, Endocrinology & Metabolism, St Mary's Hospital, Imperial College London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Shivani
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Misra
authors.affiliation: The European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and European Union of Medical Specialists joint working group on Guidelines; Laboratoire de Biologie Polyvalente, Hôpital de la Chartreuse, Villefranche-de-Rouergue, France.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Watine
authors.affiliation: The European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine and European Union of Medical Specialists joint working group on Guidelines; Department of Clinical Chemistry, Atrium Medical Centre, Heerlen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Wytze P
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Oosterhuis
mesh_terms: D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D032921:Consensus; D003955:Diagnostic Tests, Routine / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D014336:Troponin / Q000097:blood*
chemical_list: D014336:Troponin
keywords: Acute coronary syndrome; Analytical quality; Guideline; Interference; Troponin