The measurement of 25-hydroxy vitamin D - an analytical challenge.

摘要

Over the last decade requests for the measurement of 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25-OHD) have risen exponentially. For example, statistics from the Australian government provides evidence for a 100-fold increase between 2000 and 2010 (1). This burst of vitamin D requests has several causes including an increased awareness of the medical community and the general population to the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and its relevance for osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, malignancies, infectious and autoimmune disease. The massively increased demand for 25-OHD testing has important implications for healthcare systems and clinical laboratories. Whereas healthcare systems worldwide face an explosion of costs for 25-OHD testing, laboratories have to adopt methods that can cope with the elevated workload. External quality control programs show that most laboratories use automated immunoassays.