The Italian External Quality Assessment Program for Cystic Fibrosis Sweat Chloride Test: Does Active Participation Improve the Quality?

ABSTRACT: (1) Background: Diagnostic testing for cystic fibrosis (CF) is based on a sweat chloride test (SCT) considering the appropriate signs and symptoms of the disease and results of a gene mutation analysis. In 2014, the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) established a pilot Italian external quality assessment program for CF SCT (Italian EQA-SCT), which is now a third party service carried out by the ISS. (2) Methods: The ongoing scheme is prospective, enrollment is voluntary, and the payment of a fee is required. Results are shared through a dedicated web-facility. Assessment covers the analysis, interpretation, and reporting of results. (3) Results: Thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, and fifteen different laboratories, respectively, participated from 2015 to 2016 and from 2018 to 2019 in the Italian

SUBMITTER: Salvatore M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7246827 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature