Towards European urinalysis guidelines - Introduction of a project under European Confederation of Laboratory Medicine

Improved standardized performance is needed because urinalysis continues to be one of the most frequently requested laboratory tests. Since 1997, the European Confederation of Laboratory Medicine (ECLM) has been supporting an interdisciplinary project aiming to produce European urinalysis guidelines . More than seventy clinical chemists, microbiologists and ward-based clini cians, as well as representatives of manufacturers are taking part. These g uidelines aim to improve the quality and consistency of chemical urinalysis , particle counting and bacterial culture by suggesting optimal investigati ve processes that could be applied in Europe. The approach is based on medi cal needs for urinalysis. The importance of the pre-analytical stage for to tal quality is stressed by detailed illustrative advice for specimen collec tion. Attention is also given to emerging automated technology, For cost co ntainment reasons, both optimum (ideal) procedures and minimum analytical a pproaches are suggested. Since urinalysis mostly lacks genuine reference me thods (primary reference measurement procedures; Level 4), a novel classifi cation of the methods is proposed: comparison measurement procedures (Level 3), quantitative routine procedures (Level 2), and ordinal scale examinati ons (Level 1). Stepwise strategies are suggested to save costs, applying di fferent rules for general and specific patient populations. New analytical quality specifications have been created. After a consultation period, the final written text will be published in full as a separate document. (C) 20 00 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.