Lipemia interferences in routine clinical biochemical tests

Introduction: Lipemic specimens are a common and frequent, but yet unresolved problem in clinical chemistry, and may produce significant interferences in the analytical results of different biochemical parameters. Material and methods: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of lipid removal using ultracentrifugation of lipemic samples, on some routine biochemistry parameters. Among all the samples obtained daily in our laboratory, the ones which were visibly muddy were selected and underwent to a process of ultracentrifugation, being determined a variety of biochemical tests before and after ultracentrifugation. A total of 110 samples were studied. Results: We found significant differences in all the parameters studied except for total bilirubin, glucose, gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). The greatest differences in the parameters analyzed were found in the concentration of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (7.36%) and the smallest ones in the concentration of glucose (0.014%). Clinically significant interferences were found for phosphorus, creatinine, total protein and calcium. Conclusion: Lipemia causes clinically significant interferences for phosphorus, creatinine, total protein and calcium measurement and those interferences could be effectively removed by ultracentrifugation.