System Performance Monitoring in Clinical Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)

Methods Mol Biol. 2022:2546:13-25. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2565-1_2.

Abstract

Quality assurance (QA) activities enable continuous improvement through ongoing post-implementation monitoring to identify, evaluate, and correct problems. QA for clinical liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assays should include specific components that address the unique aspects of these methods. This chapter briefly describes approaches for clinical LC-MS/MS system performance monitoring using batch and peak review metrics, largely following CLSI-C62A guidance. Though routine checks ensure the quality of results reported for each run, there is also a need to evaluate metrics between runs over time. Post-implementation performance monitoring of LC-MS/MS methods is typically focused on calibration curves, retention times, peak intensities, and ion ratios.

Keywords: Data analytics; LC-MS/MS; Mass spectrometry; Quality assurance.

MeSH terms

  • Calibration
  • Chromatography, Liquid / methods
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry* / methods