Comparison of test performance of biochemical parameters in semiautomatic method and fully automatic analyzer method

Background: The primary health-care center (PHC) and community health center (CHC) are not well equipped with laboratory services. Semiauto analyzer-based reporting could be an effective modality, provided that the performance standard is comparable to that of the fully automatic analyzer. So, the objective of this study was to analyze the test results of biochemical parameters in semiauto and fully automatic analyzer and to compare the quality performance. Materials and Methods: One hundred forty-nine patients undergoing routine biochemical investigations in the department laboratory were enrolled in this study. Two millimeter of venous blood was collected from all the participants and processed for urea, cholesterol, triglyceride (TG), serum glutamate-oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT) (aspartate aminotransferase), and serum glutamate-pyruvate transaminase (SGPT) (alanine aminotransferase) by using standard kits (ERBA) in semiauto analyzer (Transasia Erba Chem5X by Calbiotech Inc. USA, semiautomated clinical chemistry analyzer) and the fully automatic analyzer (Cobas Integra 400 Roche, Germany) method. Results: There was high variability in the distribution of urea, TG, SGOT, and SGPT values in both measurement methods, whereas cholesterol data followed a normal distribution (skewness: 1.522, 1.037; kurtosis: 2.373, 0.693 in semiauto and automated methods, respectively). A significant positive correlation between both the methods of assessment was observed in urea, cholesterol, TGs, SGOT, and SGPT. The mean difference for urea was -9.85 +/- 23.997 (LOA: 37.189, -56.88), whereas it was highest for TG -24.34 +/- 38.513 (LOA: 51.144, -99.829), suggesting that both methods can measure urea with less difference in absolute values, whereas for TG the measurement values are highly variable. Conclusion: The test performance of biochemical parameters such as urea, total cholesterol, TGs, SGOT, and SGPT taken by semiauto analyzer and fully automatic analyzer method of assessment were highly related and comparable.