Clinical Chemistry, Vol 2, 16-24, Copyright © 1956 by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry

Bovine Serum Ultrafiltrate as a General Standard in Clinical Chemical Analysis

¹ Department of Biochemistry and the Isaac Albert Research Institute, Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital, Brooklyn, N. Y.

This survey has shown some facts of considerable interest to the clinical chemist.

First, it is evident that bovine blood serum ultrafiltrate constitutes one of the best general standards so far developed for clinical chemical control analysis. It is a stable product that can be prepared in large lots and kept for relatively long periods of time by storage in a refrigerator. Such a standard will be extremely useful in clinical chemical laboratories in the standardization of their technics and as an aid in the elimination of systematic errors of analysis and in routine laboratory control. On the other hand, the absence of serum proteins and sterols precludes the use of this standard for the analysis of these constituents. The second fact that emerges from this survey is that errors in clinical chemical analysis still occur. The finding that individual results from selected laboratories have been in error, imposes the obligation of periodic control checkups by the chemist charged with the supervision of the laboratory.

Finally, a general standard of this sort permits an exhaustive comparison of different methods for any given constituent without fear of variation from sample to sample.