Reliability of the medical laboratory test in the Korea National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (KNHANES) is very important for the evaluation of prevalence of chronic disease such as hyperlipidemia, chronic kidney disease or diabetes. Ther...
Reliability of the medical laboratory test in the Korea National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (KNHANES) is very important for the evaluation of prevalence of chronic disease such as hyperlipidemia, chronic kidney disease or diabetes. Therefore, strict quality control of the examination is required. Since 2008, this project has made an effort to improve the reliability of the examination results by evaluating the Seegene Medical Foundation (previously Neodin), which performs diagnostic medical examinations for KNHANES, through laboratory inspections, evaluation of internal and external quality controls, inter-laboratory comparisons, and traceability and reproducibility tests. In the 2018 KNHANES, four tests for Hg, Pb, Cd, Ni (urine) were excluded and no tests were added to the test items. Results of the evaluation of laboratory inspection, internal and external quality control were generally satisfactory. In summary, quality control has been improving for KNHANES to date. Continuous management, through evaluations such as laboratory inspections and by maintaining accuracy and traceability of the examinations by using reference institutes or reference material measurements, will be necessary.