A Progress Report of the IFCC Committee for Standardization of Thyroid Function Tests.

Background: The IFCC Committee for Standardization of Thyroid Function Tests aims at equivalence of laboratory test results for free thyroxine (FT4) and thyrotropin (TSH).

Objectives: This report describes the phase III method comparison study with clinical samples representing a broad spectrum of thyroid disease. The objective was to expand the feasibility work and explore the impact of standardization/harmonization in the clinically relevant concentration range.

Anti-CCP: challenges in quantifying auto-antibodies and creating international reference materials.

Anti-CCP assays (antibody to cyclic citrullinated peptides) possess a high specificity for RA (rheumatoid arthritis). In lack of an international reference material the absolute values among different assays strongly diversify. The cut-off showed a variance from 5 U/mL Euroimmun anti-CCP to 25 U/mL Euro-Diagnostica Immunosan RA.

Proposal of a candidate international conventional reference measurement procedure for free thyroxine in serum.

In the present paper the IFCC WG-STFT recommends and provides the rationale to establish metrological traceability of serum free thyroxine (FT4) measurements to a candidate international conventional reference measurement procedure. It is proposed that this procedure be based on equilibrium dialysis combined with determination of thyroxine in the dialysate with a trueness-based reference measurement procedure. The measurand is thus operationally defined as "thyroxine in the dialysate from equilibrium dialysis of serum prepared under defined conditions".

Methodological quality of patient-reported outcome research was low in complementary and alternative medicine in oncology.

Objective: To evaluate the methodological robustness of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) evaluation in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in oncology.

Study Design And Setting: CAM RCTs with a PRO endpoint were retrieved from a number of electronic databases. CAM interventions were defined according to the five major categories of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.