[Quality control in clinical hemorheology: preliminary study by three centers]

Clinical or pharmacological trials require reproducible laboratory tests. The aim of this work was to investigate the conditions of quality control of two laboratory tests, blood viscosity and red cell aggregation used for hemorheology trials in three centers. The results showed that viscosity measurements require 2 standards. For red cell aggregation, the control suspension standardized media (normal an pathological aggregation) showed a good intercentre reproducibility of the dissociation thresholds but a wide variability of aggregation times. Complementary studies in 5 or 6 centres are planned in order to define national standards of quality control.