[Use of 6 serum pools in standardization of the determination of apolipoproteins AI and B in the human serum]

Abstract

The proliferation of commercial immunoassays for the determination of apolipoproteins AI and B as parameters of risk for coronary heart disease and the discordance between the values obtained with the systems have made more urgent than ever the need for standardization of these assays. The authors report here the results of a collaborative study on the standardization of the values between the "Comité Française de Coordination des Recherches sur l'Athérosclérose et le Cholestérol (ARCOL)" and 13 Companies providing 15 different analytical systems. The results show that standardized measurements are not possible using a "consensus international standard" and that the major problem is related to the enormous variability of the analytical systems. In contrast, the present study demonstrates that six different serum pools containing increasing amounts of apolipoproteins AI and B can be used to generate a common reference curve which permits calibration of all immunoassays and standardization of results.