Organization of interlaboratory quality assurance programs for the analysis of trace elements in blood: Evaluation of procedures and analysis of data

Abstract Some of the problems arising from the organization of quality assurance programs for the analysis of trace elements in blood are discussed. These include the preparation of suitable control materials by the organizing center and the elaboration of valuable strategies of sample distribution, treatment of data, and evaluation of results, which can be applied even to a small number of participants. The procedures used in the Italian quality assurance scheme for trace elements in blood are reported. Their reliability was partly confirmed by the results of some experiments carried out within the framework of the program. They dealt with the commutability of control and fresh samples in blood lead analysis, the analytical behavior of liquid compared to that of lyophilized control materials for serum aluminum determination, and the evaluation of laboratory performance in the analysis of “open” or “blind” duplicates.