Despite the widespread application of the IFCC guidelines it has become obvious that this approach was reaching its limits of improvement due to the disadvantages shown above. In particular, for the IFCC guidelines it turned out that transfer of some procedures was impractical for routine test practices, such as temperature, the need for sample blanks, long reaction times Selleck Lumacaftor and limited linearity (Panteghini et al., 2001). This observation drove the development of additional components to the standardization

of methods, specifically the introduction of validated calibrated enzymes to act as reference systems and to replace the use of theoretical and computational factors, which, in turn, were usually dependent on the analytical system. The use of these standards to normalize the individual laboratory results was rather successful in reducing inter-laboratory variations from 50% without standard to 10% with standard (Jansen and Jansen, 1983). In brief, the IFCC Working Group on Calibrator in Clinical Enzymology has worked out guidelines for the selleck chemicals validation of enzyme calibrators, created a network of reference laboratories where the calibrations are carried out, and set up a global reference system for the measurement of catalytic concentrations (Ferrard et al., 1998). It is anticipated that the combination of validated reference enzymes with the application of standardized procedures

will result in an increase of reliability of enzyme data and in an improvement in both inter-method and inter-laboratory agreement, leading to valid diagnosis of diseases and therapy assessment. However, the main disadvantage of the use of calibrated enzymes as reference system is that there is only a relatively small number of standards of specific enzymes available, namely alkaline phosphatase, alanine

aminotransferase, Protirelin α-amylase, aspartate aminotransferase, creatine kinase, γ-glutamyltransferase, and lactate dehydrogenase. Furthermore, these standards are usually restricted to routine tests in human health care where the relevant enzymes that need to be assayed are known. In contrast, basic enzymology research takes place on a map of metabolic networks with many gaps standing for unknown, unidentified or scientifically uncertain catalytic entities. The development of an applicable framework of rules for uniform experimental procedures implies a number of advantages and disadvantages, as described above. After such rules are available for applied enzymology, at least one alternative to procedural standards could be to define reporting standards, because both the implementation and acceptance of such guidelines or recommendations can be realised more rapidly. They could help to increase the value of experimental data by clear and full statements of the assay conditions used and by annotation of the results in relation to the experimental environment.