Korea Roche Diagnostics and Samsung Medical Center researchers confirmed a way to analyze patient test results in real time to capture abnormal signals faster than before.
Korea Roche Diagnostics said on the 2nd that the results of its study, Patient-Based Real-Time Quality Control (PBRTQC), conducted with researchers in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Samsung Medical Center, were published in the international journal of laboratory medicine, Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM).
PBRTQC is a method that, unlike existing approaches that test separate quality-control materials at set times, continuously analyzes actual patient test results to monitor changes in test quality. Its feature is that it can fill the time gaps between regular checks.
The researchers analyzed 217,372 patient test data points in the actual testing environment at Samsung Medical Center.
As a result, in some test items such as calcium, sodium, chloride, and outpatient creatinine, additional changes that occurred between existing internal quality control (IQC) checks could be detected. In calcium testing, a case was identified in which a change signal was captured 1 hour 43 minutes earlier than with the existing internal quality control.
In an analysis dividing 300 abnormal signals captured by PBRTQC, 38% to 82% in calcium, chloride, outpatient creatinine, and sodium were classified as meaningful changes. This is not the overall error rate among all tests, but the proportion of cases in which meaningful changes were confirmed among the abnormal signals captured.
Park Hyeong-du, a professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Samsung Medical Center and the study's lead author, said, "If PBRTQC optimizes test items and analytical conditions to fit each institution's patient population and testing environment, it can be used effectively in real-world laboratories," and "together with existing IQC, it can help strengthen laboratory quality management systems."
Reference material
CCLM (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2026-0201