Cooperative interlaboratory surveys of cadmium analysis in urine

Abstract

The Subcommittee on Cadmium of the IUPAC Clinical Chemistry Division's Commission on Toxicology performed two cooperative interlaboratory surveys in 1983 and 1985. In the first survey, performed in 1983 with liquid human and lyophilized synthetic urines, 35 laboratories from 13 countries participated. In the second survey, performed in 1985 with two liquid and four lyophilized human urines, 32 laboratories from 16 countries participated. Due to recent instrumental improvements most laboratories were able to apply direct GFAAS determination methods either with deuterium or Zeeman background correction with acceptable results even at lower levels. However, as has already been observed for cadmium in whole blood surveys, there were still problems with samples having cadmium levels above 15 μg/l which certainly need further investigations [1]. The results of both surveys clearly indicate that materials based on human urine, either liquid or lyophilized, are the most promising for intra- and interlaboratory quality assessment studies. The main goal of the surveys was to check whether a candidate standardized method could be established.