Accreditation of the toxicological screening: recommendations of the SFBC-SFTA group

• Published in: Annales de biologie clinique (Paris) Vol. 77; no. 2; p. 219
• Main Authors: Guitton, Jérôme, Gaulier, Jean-Michel, Citterio-Quentin, Antony, Abe, Emuri, Allibé, Nathalie, Bartoli, Mireille, Cohen, Sabine, Monteil-Ganiere, Catherine, Garcia-Hejl, Carine, Grosjean, Jérôme, Richard, Damien, Roman, Emilie, Saint-Marcoux, Franck, Wendremaire, Maeva
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: French
• Published: France 01.04.2019
• Subjects: Accreditation; Chemistry, Clinical - methods; Chemistry, Clinical - organization & administration; Chemistry, Clinical - standards; Chromatography, Liquid; Diagnostic Tests, Routine - methods; Diagnostic Tests, Routine - standards; Equipment Contamination; Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; High-Throughput Screening Assays - methods; High-Throughput Screening Assays - standards; Humans; Mass Screening - methods; Mass Screening - standards; Quality Control; Societies, Medical - organization & administration; Societies, Medical - standards; Tandem Mass Spectrometry; Toxicology - methods; Toxicology - organization & administration; Toxicology - standards; Validation Studies as Topic; accreditation; ISO standard; ISO 15189; toxicological screening
• ISSN: 1950-6112
• DOI: 10.1684/abc.2019.1422

Toxicological screening is a specific approach to analytical toxicology that uses analytical tools such as GC-MS, LC-UV (diode array) or LC-MS. Toxicological screening allows the detection and simultaneous identification of a large number of compounds. The results may be based on the use of one or more techniques. As part of the accreditation process for medical biology examinations according to standard NF EN ISO 15189, the group from SFTA and SFBC recommends an approach to accredit toxicological screening. Indeed, the complexity of the accreditation of this analysis comes in particular from the high number of compounds that can be detected. Validation parameters are discussed in the specific context of toxicological screening by considering two distinct approaches: the simple identification of compounds, or the identification and estimation of a range of concentration related to clinical outcomes.