Interlaboratory Oral Anticoagulant Quality Assessment by the Netherlands Federation of Thrombosis Services

The 50 laboratories of the Netherlands Federation of Thrombosis Services have participated since 1974 in a voluntary external and internal quality control program. The external program comprises a monthly distribution to the member laboratories of a series of artificially prepared control blood samples, two of which are identical. The overall variation of the coagulation times found were 10% (CV) in 1974 and 8% (CV) in 1975 and 1976. Performance improved rather abruptly at the beginning of 1975, after the application of a tight methodological standardization and improvement by the manufacturer... Mehr ...