Background
International normalized ratio (INR) is traceable to World Health Organization (WHO) International Standards for thromboplastins. International Standards must be used with a manual tilt tube technique (MTT) for prothrombin time (PT) determination. An important part of the total variability of INR is due to poor harmonization of MTT across WHO reference laboratories.
Objectives
To determine the origins of PT differences between operators performing MTT and to develop a harmonized MTT.
Methods
Two workshops were held where WHO reference laboratory operators could compare their PTs using MTT and the same equipment. A harmonized MTT was used by seven operators in the second workshop.
Results
Differences have been observed in tilting frequency and in the height of pipetting plasma in the test tube. At the beginning of the first workshop, the tilting cycle time varied between 1.1 and 2.7 seconds. The mean PT of normal plasma obtained by pipetting plasma at the top of the tube was 14.3 seconds but was 12.9 seconds when plasma was pipetted at the bottom of the tube. When using the harmonized MTT for WHO International Standard rTF/16, the differences between operators were not greater than 1.1 seconds in normal plasma, and not greater than 1.3 seconds in patient plasma with average INR of 3.0. INR between‐operator coefficient of variation was 2.3%.
Conclusion
Application of a harmonized MTT in three reference laboratories resulted in substantial reduction of between‐operator variation of PT and INR. The harmonized MTT is proposed as Candidate Reference Measurement Procedure.
Background
In the Netherlands, each new lot of test strips for the CoaguChek XS is validated by a group of collaborating centers. The purpose of this study was to assess the accuracy of the international normalized ratio (INR) measured with consecutive test strip lots and the suitability of frozen plasma pools for accuracy evaluation.
Methods
Each year, a particular lot of CoaguChek XS test strips is used as reference lot. The reference lots have been validated with the International Standard for thromboplastin rTF/09, yielding a mathematical relationship (R1) between reference lot INR and International Standard INR. New lots are compared to the reference lot using patients’ capillary blood samples, yielding a relationship (R2) between the new lot INR and the reference lot INR. INRs of the blood samples were within the 1.5–4.5 interval. In parallel, three frozen plasmas pools are analyzed with the test strips. The distance of each plasma point to the line of relationship R2 was assessed.
Results
Fifty-four test strip lots have been evaluated during 3 years (2014–2016). Mean INR differences between test strip lot and International Standard rTF/09 varied between −0.14 and +0.20 (−4% and +8%, respectively). A positive trend with strip lot sequence number was observed (p<0.001). In several cases, the distance of the frozen plasmas to the whole blood relationship (R2) was greater than the critical value for commutability.
Conclusions
Using whole blood, all evaluated test strip lots met the analytical bias criterion of ±10%. Frozen plasma pools behave differently compared to whole blood and are not suitable for assessing absolute accuracy of new CoaguChek XS test strips.
Some freeze-dried plasmas including the international standard for fibrinogen are not commutable among automated instruments for fibrinogen clotting rate assays according to Clauss. Our results have consequences for all interested parties in the traceability chain (WHO, industry, external quality assessment schemes, clinical laboratories).
SummaryAdequate heat stability of international reference preparations (IRP) for thromboplastin (tissue factor) is an essential requirement. Accelerated degradation testing was performed by three laboratories on two candidate IRP for recombinant human tissue factor.Heat treatment of these candidates resulted in slight shortening of the PT, contrasting with heat-induced prolongation of the PT observed with a conventional human brain derived IRP.Heat stability of these candidates was improved when compared with the stability of previous recombinant human tissue factor preparations.The PT-ratio did not change significantly when the candidates were stored for 28 days at 44° C. It’ can therefore be concluded that both candidates are acceptable with regard to stability.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.