Dr. Carmen Ricos and colleagues explain the 2010 additions and updates to the biological variation database.

Biological variation database, and quality specifications for imprecision, bias and total error (desirable and minimum). The 2010 update

Carmen Ricós,^1,2 José-Vicente García-Lario,^1,3 Virtudes Alvarez,^1,4 Fernando Cava,^1,5 Marivi Domenech,^1,6 Amparo Hernández,^1,4 Carlos-Victor Jiménez,^1,7 Joana Minchinela,^1,7 Carmen Perich,^1,8,Margarita Simón,^1,9 Carmen Biosca,^1,10 Pilar Fernández-Calle^1,11

¹Analytical Quality Committee, Spanish Society of Clinical Chemistry and Molecular Pathology (SEQC),
²Laboratoris Clínics Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron (Barcelona),
³ Hospital de Motril (Granada),
⁴ Laboratori Clínic del’Hospitalet,
⁵ Fundación-Hospital Alcorcón (Madrid),
⁶ Laboratori Clínic Manso (Barcelona),
⁷ Laboratori Clínic de Badalona,
⁸ Laboratori Clínic Bon Pastor(Barcelona),
⁹ Laboratori Intercomarcal Vilafranca del Penedés,
¹⁰ Servei deBioquímica Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol (Badalona),
¹¹ Servicio AnálisisClínicos Hospital La Paz (Madrid)

This is the sixth edition of the analytical quality specifications for 319 analytes, derived from a database compiling articles on the within and between-subject biological variation (BV) components (CVI and CVG, respectively) in healthy subjects.

The first edition was presented at the Stockholm international consensus conference on Strategies to Set Global Analytical Quality Specifications in Laboratory Medicine and was published in the Scan J Clin Lab Invest 1999;59:475-586. It was also published on this website in June 2000. The second to fifth edition appeared at the end of 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2008, respectively, on this website and were also published in Spanish at httlp://www.seqc.es/bd/vb.html.

This sixth edition has the following changes with respect to the previous edition:

• CA 15.3 antigen: one paper published in 2008 has been added, thus slightly changing the median value compared with that published in the previous edition.
• Cromogranin A: analyte included in this edition because a paper already published in 2004 as been found.
• C-Peptide: one paper recently published has been added, thus slightly changing the median value compared with that published in the previous edition.
• Free Thyroxine (FT4): one paper recently published has been added, thus slightly changing the median value compared with that published in the previous edition.
• Free Triiodothyronine (FT3): one paper recently published has been added, thus slightly changing the median value compared with that published in the previous edition.
• Insuline-like growth factor (IGF-1): analyte included in this edition because one paper was published in 2008.
• Myeloperoxidase: analyte included in this edition because one paper was published in 2008.
• N-terminal (NT)-proBNP: error appeared in previous edition had been amended.
• Parathyroid hormone (PTH): analyte included in this edition because one paper was published in 2008.
• Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH): one paper recently published has been added, thus slightly changing the median value compared with that published in the previous edition.
• Troponin I: analyte included in this edition because two papers were published in 2009.