Effect of bilirubin on uricase-peroxidase coupled reactions. Implications for urate measurement in clinical samples and external quality assessment schemes.

Methods for the determination of serum urate which employ the uricase-peroxidase reaction may suffer interference from concentrations of bilirubin which can be found in relatively mild jaundice. Such concentrations of bilirubin are also frequently present in sera distributed as part of an external quality assessment scheme and, for this reason, laboratories should be particularly careful not to recalibrate their urate assays to attempt to achieve results closer to the consensus mean.