Planned Variation in Preanalytical Conditions to Evaluate Biospecimen Stability in the National Children’s Study (NCS)

摘要

BACKGROUNDPreanalytical conditions encountered during collection, processing, and storage of biospecimens may influence laboratory results. The National Children’s Study (NCS) is a planned prospective cohort study of 100,000 families to examine the influence of a wide variety of exposures on child health. In developing biospecimen collection, processing, and storage procedures for the NCS, we identified several analytes of different biochemical categories for which it was unclear to what extent deviations from NCS procedures could influence measurement results.