PEDIATRICS Vol. 10 No. 5 November 1952, pp. 624-626
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PUBLIC HEALTH, NURSING AND MEDICAL SOCIAL WORK

RELIABILITY OF LABORATORY FINDINGS

ALBERT V. HARDY M.D., DR. P.H.

Editors: MYRON E. WEGMAN, M.D..

THERE are admitted limitations in our clinical examinations. The history may be biased. Significant departures from the normal may not be revealed by expert inspection, palpation and auscultation. Even x-ray is of help only when tissues of varying density are involved. Hence more and more we have turned to the laboratory for reliable data. It is to the great credit of the laboratories that in our teaching centers the results have had that degree of reliability which developed in our students a feeling of complete confidence in reported laboratory findings. It is not our intention to question whether this degree of confidence was warranted, but it is our purpose to make some observations on the reliability of laboratory examinations available to most of us in the practice of our profession. If laboratory findings are not as reliable as we expect them to be, can they be made so?

"Survey of the Accuracy of Chemical Analyses in Clinical Laboratories" by Belk and Sunderman has been quoted repeatedly. The Pennsylvania State Medical Society sponsored the study. The 59 laboratories which voluntarily participated were under the direction of pathologists and chiefly in hospitals. The quality of work of small laboratories operated by a technologist or performed by individual technicians in physicians' offices was not assessed. The findings, it is presumed, are the more favorable observations for laboratories of one state.

Samples for check-testing were submitted to the participating laboratories and results were reported and evaluated without identification of the laboratory concerned. To illustrate, a glucose solution with 60 mg. of glucose per 100 cc. was submitted, the result was considered satisfactory if readings were within the range of 50 to 70 mg. Of the 52 cxaminations reported, 33 were satisfactory.