Annual Report on the External Quality Assessment Scheme for Urinalysis and Fecal Occult Blood Testing in Korea (2017)

Chang-Ho Jeon, A-Jin Lee, Sang-Gyung Kim, Hun-Seok Suh, and Young-Cheol Bae Department of Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine, Catholic University of Daegu, Daegu, Korea In 2017, external quality assessment trials for urinalysis and fecal occult blood (FOB) were performed with 1,544 participants. Urine chemistry tests were performed three times and urine sediment and FOB tests were evaluated 2 times. Urine chemistry tests consisted of pH, protein, glucose, ketone, bilirubin, blood, urobilinogen, nitrite, leukocyte, and specific gravity analyses. The results of the urine chemistry and specific gravity tests showed accuracy rates >95%. The accuracy rate of urine sediments was low, especially for fat droplets and atypical uric acid crystals. In the FOB quality test, all reagents showed accuracy rates >82%, which suggested the persistent improvement of false-positive reactions. In the FOB quantitative test, discrepant results depending on the instrument used were observed. To compensate for the result differences caused by the amounts of stool samples, the results should be reported using another unit (μg/g of stool). (J Lab Med Qual Assur 2018;40:128-135)