Evaluation of commutability of control materials

The commutability of 13 control materials was evaluated by performing parallel measurements on two different analysers: a Synchron CX-5 Delta from Beckman-Coulter and a Vitros 950 from Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics. Twenty three clinical chemistry analytes (substrates, electrolytes and enzymatic activities) were determined in plasma from 15 different patients in order to define intermethod relationship for each analyte. The relationship observed for each control material was compared to those obtained for patients specimens. The results show that commutability depends both on the tested analyte and on the control material. No totally commutable material has been found for the whole set of tested parameters. Most control materials were commutable for inorganic phosphate, glucose, chloride, triglycerides, alanine aminotransferase, amylase and gamma-glutamyltransferase, but less than a quarter of control materials were commutable for sodium, calcium, creatinine, alkaline phosphatase and lipase. Seven materials were commutable for more than half of the analytes, whereas five control materials were commutable for less than a quarter of these analytes. We propose to verify the commutability of materials before their use in an external quality control assessement.