Comparison of different approaches to estimate the uncertainty of a liquid chromatographic assay

• Published in: Analytica chimica acta 2003-03, Vol.480 (1), p.39-52
• Main Authors: Hund, Edelgard, Massart, D.Luc, Smeyers-Verbeke, Johanna
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analytical chemistry; Chemistry; Chromatographic methods and physical methods associated with chromatography; Error-budget; Error-propagation; Exact sciences and technology; GUM approach; Measurement uncertainty; Other chromatographic methods; Top-down approach
• ISSN: 0003-2670; 1873-4324
• DOI: 10.1016/S0003-2670(02)01591-X

A measurement result cannot be properly interpreted without knowledge about its uncertainty. Several concepts to estimate the uncertainty of a measurement result have been developed. Here, four different approaches for uncertainty estimation are compared on the example of the RP-high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) assay for tylosin for veterinary use: the guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement (GUM) approach, which derives the uncertainty of a measurement result by combining the uncertainties related to the uncertainty sources of the measurement process; the top-down approach, which uses the reproducibility estimate from an inter-laboratory study as uncertainty estimate; an approach recently presented by Barwick and Ellison, which combines precision, trueness and robustness data to obtain an uncertainty estimate of the measurement result and finally a further approach, which directly estimates the measurement uncertainty from a robustness test. The comparison shows that the different approaches lead to comparable uncertainty estimates.