Detecting Elevated Cholesterol Levels: Part 1: How accurate is the Reflotron?

To assess accuracy of blood cholesterol measurements in the office, fingerprick blood cholesterol assays by a dry reagent chemistry analyzer were compared in 151 patients with simultaneous venipuncture cholesterol assays by standard laboratory methods. Compared with the laboratory assay, seven of eight analyzers had total absolute biases less than 5%. Variability in results was comparable to that of community laboratories.