Recent approaches to the standardization of cardiac markers

The development of commercial assays for the determination of cardiac prote ins has been one of the most important innovations in the field of cardiova scular diagnostics in the last decade. Some assays are, however, inadequate ly appraised prior to their introduction to clinical use. This paper focuse s on some important preanalytical, analytical and interpretative problems, and summarizes the status of the ongoing local and international standardiz ation efforts. The most urgent issue at the moment is the development of in ternational reference materials, which can be used for the calibration of d ifferent assays, thus decreasing between-assay biases. In order to achieve comparability of test results, another important item is the standardizatio n of the epitopes of the antibodies used for the assay development. Efforts to improve the precision of cardiac marker assays are also warranted. Fina lly, the effect of storage time and temperature on apparent marker concentr ation and the possible influence of different anticoagulants on measured ma rker values should clearly be evaluated.