The continuing need for quality assessment of cyclosporine measurement.

The returns from the United Kingdom Cyclosporin Quality Assessment Scheme were analyzed for the period June 1987 to August 1988. During this time the number of laboratories in the Scheme increased from 102 to 124 and the proportion of laboratories using nonspecific assay methods declined, as did the proportion of them measuring cyclosporine in plasma. Seven different methods were used to measure the drug in blood, and the seven methods gave seven different results when used to measure patients' samples. The results, from lowest to highest, differed by a factor of approximately 3.4. The within-assay coefficient of variation (CV) was acceptable for all methods, but the between-assay and between-center CVs were poor. HPLC gave higher CVs than did the immunoassays.