To Establish Selecting Criteria for Retest which is Efficient at Reliability Improvement and Turn around time: In Thyroglobulin Assay

Thyroglobulin 검사 시 재검선별 및 결과보고절차마련

Purpose: Serum thyroglobulin (Tg) determination has been reported to be a sensitive indicator of persistent or recurrent differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) after total thyroidetectomy. In patients free of metastasese and recurrences after a complete thyroidectomy and radioiodine removal for DTC, the Tg is usually <1 ng/mL or can no longer be detected even with TSH stimulation. Therefore, report in low Tg levels and selecting criteria for retest is very important. The purpose of this study was to establish selecting criteria for retest which is efficient at reliability improvement and Turn around time (TAT). Materials and Methods: Sera from 137 patients with DTC were divided into two groups as first(<1.0 ng/mL or >4.0 ng/mL) and second(1.0-4.0 ng/mL). In case of group(<1.0 ng/mL) is in patient free of metastases and recurrences, >4.0 ng/ml is low coefficient of variation (CV%) at internal quality control and good linearity at standard curve. Therefore first group began with Delta/Panic check (D/P) and second group surveyed with the latest results. In that the latest results were <1.0 ng/ml, we checked the thyroxin withdrawal. Finally selected specimen retested with raw specimen. Results: In first group, we was able to reduce the retest rate(30.8% to 7.7%). and In second group, 40% to 5%. The total retest rate was 7.3%. Conclusion: If using the selecting criteria for retest, is helpful to accuracy and quickness of the result report.