Evaluation of Coefficients of Variation for Clinical Chemistry Tests Based on Internal Quality Control Data Across 5,425 Laboratories in China From 2013 to 2022.

Background: Clinical chemistry tests are most widely used in clinical laboratories, and diverse measurement systems for these analyses are available in China. We evaluated the imprecision of clinical chemistry measurement systems based on internal QC (IQC) data.

Methods: IQC data for 27 general chemistry analytes were collected in February each year from 2013 to 2022. Four performance specifications were used to calculate pass rates for CVs of IQC data in 2022. Boxplots were drawn to analyze trends of CVs, and differences in CVs among different groups were assessed using the Mann-Whitney U-test or Kruskal-Wallis test.

Results: The number of participating laboratories increased significantly from 1,777 in 2013 to 5,425 in 2022. CVs significantly decreased for all 27 analytes, except creatine kinase and lipase. Triglycerides, total bilirubin, direct bilirubin, iron, and γ-glutamyl transferase achieved pass rates >80% for all goals. Nine analytes with pass rates <80% based on 1/3 allowable total error were further analyzed; the results indicated that closed systems exhibited lower CVs than open systems for all analytes, except total protein. For all nine analytes, differences were significant between tertiary hospitals and non-tertiary hospitals and between accredited and non-accredited laboratories.

Conclusions: The CVs of IQC data for clinical chemistry have seen a continuous overall improvement in China. However, there is ample room for imprecision improvement for several analytes, with stricter performance specifications.