1 – Program overview

This external quality assessment program has a twofold goal:

• Assess the accuracy of the results
• Evaluate the performance of the methods used in clinical settings (metabolites, interferences, etc.).

Longitudinal studies are carried out over several years to assess the popularity of the methods and their respective performances. Guidance and recommendations are issued with the results of these studies.

Participating labs can choose to be assessed for all the analytes of this program, or simply a subset of analytes of interest.

2 – Assessment frequency

Number of surveys per year: 4
Number of control samples per survey: 1 or 2
Number of samples per year: 6

3 – List of analytes assessed

• Valproic acid
• Amikacin
• Caffeine
• Carbamazepine
• Ciclosporin
• Digoxin
• Gentamicin
• Lamotrigine
• Levetiracetam
• Lithium
• Methotrexate
• Phenobarbital
• Phenytoin
• Tacrolimus
• Teicoplanin
• Theophylline
• Tobramycin
• Vancomycin

4 – Description of the control samples

Lyophilised human control serum (samples to be resuspended in 5 mL of distilled water).