Reference methods in clinical chemistry.

ABSTRACT

For the measurements of analyses such as glucose, creatinine etc, in clinical chemistry, definitive methods and standard reference materials are available. On the other hand, for the measurements of the catalytic activity concentration of enzymes, various methods have been developed and those methods have generated a variety of results and reference ranges, difficulties in the interpretation of results, and difficulties in external quality assessment programs. Therefore, for the measurement of the catalytic activity of an enzyme, reference method is very important as the first start to obtain an accurate and precise result. We report the present situation of standardization for the measurement of the catalytic activity of enzymes and the comparison of reference methods including standards or consensus methods for the representative enzymes recommended by International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and the representative societies of clinical chemistry, and the survey results produced by Japan Medical Association.