Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Reference versus consensus values in proficiency testing of clinical chemistry: a statistical comparison based on laboratories results in Colombia

  • General Paper
  • Published:
Accreditation and Quality Assurance Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Proficiency testing or external quality control provides additional means to ensure the quality of laboratory testing results. Various methods can be considered in practice to fulfill this objective. The most commonly applied are comparison of laboratory results with reference or consensus values. In this work, we study the concordance between these schemes based on the review of a large dataset corresponding to clinical chemistry proficiency testing results. The analysis is carried out by using several statistical methodologies (diagnostic tests, contingency tables, and test of hypothesis). Results indicate that the conclusions obtained from these schemes can be in some cases (several analytes) markedly different. This is possibly because some statistical assumptions to apply PT based on consensus values are violated.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. ISO/IEC 17043 (2010) Conformity assessment-general requirements for proficiency testing. Standard, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva

  2. Medeiros de Albano F, Schwengber ten Caten C (2014) Proficiency tests for laboratories: a systematic review. Accred Qual Assur 19:245–257

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Szewczak E, Bondarzewski A (2016) Is the assessment of interlaboratory comparison results for a small number of tests and limited number of participants reliable and rational? Accred Qual Assur 21(2):91–100

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Koch M, Baumeister F (2012) On the use of consensus means as assigned values. Accred Qual Assur 17(4):395–398

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. PROASECAL SAS (2019) https://www.proasecal.com/

  6. Hund E, Massart DL, Smeyers-Verbeke J (2000) Inter-laboratory studies in analytical chemistry. Anal Chim Acta 423(2):145–165

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Wong S (2005) Evaluation of the use of consensus values in proficiency testing programmes. Accred Qual Assur 10(8):409–414

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Baldan A, van der Veen AM, Prauß D, Recknagel A, Boley N, Evans S, Woods D (2001) Economy of proficiency testing: reference versus consensus values. Accred Qual Assur 6(4–5):164–167

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Wong S (2007) A comparison of performance statistics for proficiency testing programmes. Accred Qual Assur 12:59–66

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. ISO 13528 (2015) Statistical methods for use in proficiency testing by interlaboratory comparison. Standard, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva

  11. Hollander M, Wolfe DA (1999) Nonparametric statistical methods. Wiley, London

    Google Scholar 

  12. Zar J (1999) Biostatistical analysis. Pearson Education India, Bengaluru

    Google Scholar 

  13. Lalkhen AG, McCluskey A (2008) Clinical tests: sensitivity and specificity. Contin Educ Anaesth Crit Care Pain 8(6):221–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Reitsmaa J, Glasa A, Rutjesa A, Scholtenb R, Bossuyta P, Zwindermana A (2005) Bivariate analysis of sensitivity and specificity produces informative summary measures in diagnostic reviews. J Clin Epidemiol 58:982–990

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Kim S, Lee W (2017) Does McNemar’s test compare the sensitivities and specificities of two diagnostic tests? Stat Methods Med Res 26(1):142–154

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Wong S (2016) Review of the new edition of ISO 13528. Accred Qual Assur 21(4):249–254

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Willink R (2005) Forming a comparison reference value from different distributions of belief. Metrologia 43(1):12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Razali N, Wah Y (2011) Power comparisons of Shapiro-Wilk, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Lilliefors and Anderson-Darling tests. J Stat Model Anal 2(1):21–33

    Google Scholar 

  19. Carobbi C (2017) A modified ISO 13528 robust analysis (algorithm A) that takes measurement uncertainty into account. Measurement 110:296–306

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank PROASECAL SAS company for providing us the dataset analyzed in the article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. PROASECAL SAS, Bogotá, Colombia

    Clara Morales

  2. Statistics Department, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia

    Ramón Giraldo

Authors
  1. Clara Morales
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ramón Giraldo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ramón Giraldo.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Morales, C., Giraldo, R. Reference versus consensus values in proficiency testing of clinical chemistry: a statistical comparison based on laboratories results in Colombia. Accred Qual Assur 25, 99–105 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00769-019-01423-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00769-019-01423-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation