[How reliable is the laboratory? Increased needs of patient-related quality assurance]

Recent developments in medical care and research involve the increased use of immunochemical assays for hormones, tumour markers, vitamins and drugs. External quality assurance programmes using pooled human sera usually fail to detect analytical interference due to substances (e.g. anti-immunoglobulin or anti-ligand antibodies) present in individual serum specimens. The article reports on experience gained during a three-year period when specimens from individual patients attending a thyroid unit were distributed to hospital laboratories in Sweden for analysis. Specimen selection criteria were based on contradictory findings at the initial clinical or laboratory evaluation. The programme has given rise to the formation of a network of the laboratories involved, under the co-ordination of EQUALIS (External quality assurance in laboratory medicine in Sweden).