[Statistical problems in comparative clinical chemical analysis. Report of the workshop conference of the German Society for Clinical Chemistry, 12 and 13 January 1984, Bremen].

In continuation of the three previous workshops on this theme, the Passing-Bablok method was recapitulated and compared with standardized main component analysis. Participants in the workshop recommended both methods in place of the classical regression analysis. An essential advantage of the standardized main component is that it is more easily understood by the clinical chemist and his coworkers, and it involves fewer calculation steps. On the other hand, outliers must be recognized and eliminated, and certain other assumptions must be fulfilled. In comparison, the Passing-Bablok method is much more robust, but requires more calculation. The workshop also discussed unresolved questions concerning bases for the comparison of methods: the necessary number of samples, measures of scatter for description of precision, comparison of discrete results and several independent variances. These will be treated in greater depth in subsequent workshops.