1 – Scheme overview

This scheme was set up to better meet the needs of clinical biologists. It is designed for clinical toxicology and includes some of the analytes already present in the CMED scheme.

Molecules that are not listed below may be added for clinical biologists performing toxicological screening using separation methods.

The goal of this scheme is twofold:

• Assess the accuracy of the results
• Evaluate the performance of the methods used (sensitivity and specificity)

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 scheme, or simply a subset of analytes of interest.

2 – Assessment frequency

Number of investigations per year: 4
Number of control samples per investigation: 1 or 2
Number of samples per year : 6

3 – List of analytes assessed

Four medicinal product families or molecules are systematically assessed:

• Tricyclic antidepressants
• Benzodiazepines
• Paracetamol
• Salicylates

As well as other molecules (medicinal products or drugs of abuse) detected using separation methods

Qualitative and quantitative serum toxicology assays.

4 – Description of the control samples

Lyophilized human control serums (samples to be resuspended in 5 mL of distilled water).

5 – Clinical setting

A choice of clinical settings are provided with each investigation to help you identify medicinal molecules and/or drugs of abuse that are not included in the list.