IMPROVEMENTS IN CREATININE METHODOLOGY - A CRITICAL-ASSESSMENT

A large evaluation study, analytical as well as clinical, was performe d on four published improvements for the determination of creatinine i n serum. Two of the methods were based on the Jaffe reaction, the othe r two were enzymatic methods. Analytically, all four methods showed a similar performance. In the analysis of numerous specimens from advanc ed care departments, however, the methods performed differently. The t wo enzymatic procedures scored better than the two Jaffe methods, when compared with an HPLC-based reference method. However, even the best methods produced outliers and a larger scatter than that obtained with ''normal'' specimens.