Evaluation of the Beckman Coulter DxC 700 AU chemistry analyzer

Objectives: We evaluated and defined the analytical performance of the Beckman Coulter DxC 700 AU analyzer compared to the Siemens Dimension Vista 500 analyzer. Design: and Methods: Performance characteristics included intra and inter-run precision, linearity/ analytical measurement range, method correlation, and reference range verification. A total of 53 assays including 11 critical care, 19 general chemistries, 11 proteins, 10 urines, and 2 CSF analyzes were tested. We also evaluated similarities and differences in assay methodologies between the 2 systems. Results: The DxC 700 AU demonstrated excellent precision, comparable analytical measurement ranges and strong method correlation with the Dimension Vista 500 for most serum/plasma assays. 95% of the intra-run and 95% of the inter-run precision QC levels showed <3.0%CV and <6.0%CV, respectively. None of the deviations were clinically significant. The AMRs for all analyzes except 5 met the manufacturer's stated range. ALP, Lactate, U-glucose and CSF-glucose all recovered above the stated upper limit range, while prealbumin showed a smaller range. All analyzes, except 14, showed slopes between 0.9 and 1.1 and/or biases <10%. Only ammonia, ferritin and lipase required significant reference range changes. The urine and CSF assays correlated very well with no adjustments in reference ranges required. Conclusions: The analytical performance of the DxC 700 AU analyzer was acceptable with only a small number of analyzes requiring significant reference range changes.