We carried out a statistically designed, multilaboratory study to evaluate a flame atomic emission spectroscopic (FAES) method for serum sodium as a Reference Method. definitive values for the serum pools for the study, with sodium in the 110-160 mmol/L range, were determined at the National Bureau of Standards by an ion-exchange/gravimetry method. The multilaboratory FAES results were judged against the preselected performance criteria for the Reference Method: maximum imprecision 1.5 mmol/L, maximum bias 2.0 mmol/L. The standard error of a single laboratory's performance of the method varied with concentration from 0.46 to 0.86 mmol/L with a maximum bias of 1.0 mmol/L; thus, the criteria were satisfied. The cooperating laboratories performed the method with either manual or semi-automated pipetting. Although both modes of pipetting satisfied our acceptability criteria, only the method with semi-automated pipetting is described here as the Reference Method. The statistical results indicate that the precision criterion can be fulfilled with fewer than four replicate analyses.
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Schaffer et al. (1981) studied this question.