1 - Programme Overview

This EQA programme is intended for laboratories carrying out the determination of catecholamines, methoxylated derivatives, VMA, HVA and 5HIAA in urine.

Participating labs can choose to be assessed for all the analytes of this programme, or simply a subset of analytes of interest.

2 - Assessment Frequency

Number of surveys per year: 6
Number of control samples per survey: 2
Number of samples per year: 12

3 - List of Analytes Assessed 

• 5-Hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA)
• Homovanillic acid
• Vanillylmandelic acid
• Catecholamines
  • - Adrenaline (epinephrine)
  • - Noradrenaline (norepinephrine)
  • - Dopamine
• Methoxylated derivatives
  • - Total metanephrine
  • - Total normetanephrine
  • - Total 3-methoxytyramine
  • - Free metanephrine
  • - Free normetanephrine
  • - Free 3-methoxytyramine
• Urinary creatinine

4 - Description of the Control Samples

Lyophilised human control urine (samples to be resuspended in 5 mL of distilled water + 40 μL of 6M HCl),