In the November issue of Pathology in Practice, the next in Stephen MacDonald’s series of articles on measurement uncertainty (MU) will approach the most commonly used method to determine MU in pathology laboratories, focusing on imprecision as the determinant of MU. So far in this series the measurand has been defined, the assay modelled, assay variance, as captured by IQC, shown to be the most significant contributor to what was being quantified, and the only contributor required to be considered.
A subsequent article in the series will discuss the need to include multiple contributors and how such contributors are combined and analysed to build up what is termed an uncertainty budget when the Guide to Uncertainty Measurement (GUM) principles are followed.