National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry Laboratory Medicine Practice Guidelines for use of tumor markers in clinical practice: quality requirements.

Background: This report presents updated National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry Laboratory Medicine Practice Guidelines summarizing quality requirements for the use of tumor markers.

Methods: One subcommittee developed guidelines for analytical quality relevant to serum and tissue-based tumor markers in current clinical practice. Two other subcommittees formulated recommendations particularly relevant to the developing technologies of microarrays and mass spectrometry.