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Updated: Nov 18, 2025
Selected Reaction Monitoring Mass Spectrometry for Absolute Protein Quantification
Published on: August 17, 2015
External quality assessment of M-protein diagnostics: a realistic impression of the accuracy and precision of
Corrie M de Kat Angelino1, Joannes F M Jacobs1
1Department of Laboratory Medicine, Laboratory Medical Immunology, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Objectives:
Studies that investigate the accuracy and precision of M-protein quantification are scarce. These studies are prone to give a biased view, since they are exclusively performed by institutions with international top-expertise on M-protein diagnostics. To obtain a realistic impression of the accuracy and precision of M-protein quantification, we studied results of 73 laboratories participating in the Dutch External Quality Assessment (EQA) program for M-protein diagnostics.
Methods:
To measure accuracy, healthy serum was spiked with respectively 1 and 5 g/L human IgG-kappa monoclonal antibody daratumumab. To measure precision, five sera were selected to be repeatedly send to all blinded EQA-participants.
Results:
The reported concentrations for the EQA-sample spiked with 5 g/L daratumumab ranged from 2.6 to 8.0 g/L (mean 4.9 g/L, between-laboratory CV = 23%). 98% of the participants detected and correctly characterized the 1 g/L daratumumab band. Both the accuracy (mean 1.7 g/L) and precision (between-laboratory CV = 46%) of this 1 g/L M-protein was poor. In the five EQA-samples that were repeatedly send to the same 73 participating laboratories, between-laboratory precision (mean CV = 25%) was significantly different than the within-laboratory precision (mean CV = 12%). Relatively poor precision was observed in sera with small M-proteins.
Conclusions:
The EQA-data reveal a large variation in reported M-protein concentrations between different laboratories. In contrast, a satisfactory within-laboratory precision was observed when the same sample was repeatedly analyzed. The M-protein concentration is correlated with both accuracy and precision. These data indicate that M-protein quantification to monitor patients is appropriate, when subsequent testing is performed within the same laboratory.
