External quality assurance target setting with NIST SRM 968d material: performance in the 2010 Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia Quality Assurance Program with retinol, alpha-tocopherol and beta-carotene.

摘要

Since 1999, the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) Quality Assurance Program (QAP) has conducted an assessment of analytical performance for vitamins, including: vitamin A (total-retinol), vitamin E (alpha-toco-pherol) and beta-carotene. Participating laboratories demonstrate considerable method commonality. The calibrators chosen by most participants are commercial secondary calibrators sourced from Bio-Rad Laboratories (Hercules, CA, USA), Chromsystems. (Munich, Germany) or Recipe (Munich, Germany); all are referenced to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST; Gaithersburg, MD, USA) Standard Reference Material (SRM) 968. A minority of participants prepare in-house calibrators referenced to either NIST or to Sigma (St Louis, MO, USA).