Interference in laboratory tes ts

Interference in clinical laboratory tes ting can create discrepancies in tes t results which can lead to patient harm. In clinical chemis try, interference is defined as a cause of medically significant difference in the measurand tes t result due to another component or property of the sample. Interference by endogenous and exogenous subs tances with assays for clinical analytes is a common problem in laboratory medicine. There are four major endogenous compounds that con- sis tently interfere with laboratory

hemoglobin, bilirubin, lipids, and paraproteins. The major exogenous sources of interference are drugs prescribed for the patient; We recommend determining whether the interference is dependent or independent of the analyte for the assay. Further, we propose an approach to the identification and resolution of an interference problem for the clinical.