Evaluation and operationalization of commercial serum indices quality control material in the clinical laboratory.

Background: Evaluation of specimen suitability for downstream analytical testing and identification of potential interferents in the clinical laboratory is critical for the generation of actionable clinical results. Within the clinical laboratory, hemolysis, icterus, and lipemia are commonly assessed spectrophotometrically. While clinical laboratories rely on analyte-specific quality control (QC) materials to monitor test or instrument performance, QC materials evaluating specimen integrity checks are infrequently implemented.

Comparative evaluation of blood collection tubes for clinical chemistry analysis.

Background: Routine chemistry testing is typically performed using serum or plasma to assess a patient's clinical status. At our institution, serum is the specimen type used. To reduce processing times, evaluation of plasma-based and rapid serum gel separator tubes was performed.

Establishing hemolysis and lipemia acceptance thresholds for clinical chemistry tests.

Background: A key component of laboratory medicine is the evaluation of specimen suitability for downstream analytical testing. Accurate identification and characterization of the impact of interferents on clinical chemistry analytes is important for patient care. To empirically assess the influence of hemolysis and lipemia on clinical chemistry tests analyzed on a Roche cobas® c701 system, we evaluated serum pools spiked with increasing concentrations of hemolysate and Intralipid®.