[Effects of pooling biological specimens on the results of medical biological analysis]

The reasons of pooling biological specimens and the consequences of this approach are presented here. Pools are used to prepare lots of control sera or of reference solutions. Specimens are also mixed in order to detect some analytical interferences. Pooling of biological specimens from several subjects and analysis of this pool instead of the measurement of each specimen is not acceptable because it induces a dilution of the specimen to be assayed and thus potentially false negative results. Another aspect is that dilution is performed with specimens of unknown composition. Particularly, these specimens may contain interferent substances, inducing analytical errors. These arguments are relevant in the different sciences of medical biology and for qualitative and quantitative tests.