Homocysteine

Purpose:
The Homocysteine programme is available as part of a comprehensive suite of programmes to assess and monitor the performance of the Clinical Biochemistry laboratory’s repertoire of both core and esoteric tests used for the diagnosis and monitoring of disease.

Homocysteine is tested to aid in the diagnosis of homocysteinuria, as part of a “cardiovascular risk assessment” and to determine folate or vitamin B12-deficiency as blood homocysteine concentration can be raised in both conditions.

Scope:
Three liquid human serum samples with a range of concentrations found in both inborn errors and cardiovascular risk assessment are distributed on a bi-monthly basis.

Eighteen samples are distributed annually which consist of endogenous samples along with a panel of linearly related samples produced from donations from healthy volunteers spiked with an exogenous source. The linearly related samples are distributed on a number of occasions over the year to assess both laboratory and method performance, including linearity, bias, within and between batch imprecision.