[Dry chemistry in the clinical laboratory: how reliable is it?].

The performance of dry chemistry analysis systems was evaluated using the results obtained from proficiency testing 1991 of practitioner's laboratories. 59% of the participants use dry chemistry (Ektachem DT 60 Kodak, Reflotron Boehringer, Cobas Ready Roche). The evaluation reveals the following: The declared values of the control sera for the dry chemistry systems agree well with those of the conventional wet chemistry, excepting enzyme assays. The precision of the dry chemistry parameters is substantially higher than that of the wet chemistry. The overall performance of the dry chemistry analysis systems was found to be superior as compared to the wet chemistry performance. A prerequisite for dry chemistry proficiency testing are control sera of human origin.