Abstract
Two successively drawn blood samples were collected from 100 randomly selected persons and analysed for total-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and triglycerides in serum. One sample from each person was sent directly to the laboratory, while the other was kept refrigerated for 7 days before it was sent.
Coefficients of variation for the laboratory variation were 2.0%, 12.4% and 4.7% for total-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and triglycerides, respectively. There were no significant differences between the first and second drawn sample for either of the variables. We found small, but significant decreases (P < 0.001) from directly sent to stored samples for total-cholesterol and triglycerides. The correlations between the two samples were 0.99, 0.76 and 0.99 for total- cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and triglycerides.