Critical issues in the glossary of CEN documents for NGS

 https://bit.ly/glossarioNGS

Criticità nel glossario dei documenti CEN per NGS
8° C ONGRESSO NAZIONALE SIPMeL - Riva del Garda, 9-11 Ottobre 2023

Poster n° 165

The European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) prepares two documents for examination workflows with NGS methods: CEN/TS 17981-2 (Examination of human RNA) and CEN/TS 17981-1 (Examination of human DNA). Critical points in the definitions of some glossary entries are studied here. In the CEN standards examined, clinical, metrological, numerical and nominal results are confused, even with internal contradictions. "Measurement sensitivity" should be applied to the numerical results of the steps that make up the NGS process, alongside the detection limit (3.29 LOD). Diagnostic sensitivity or comparability with other methods (PPA and NPA, VIM4 6.20) are different. 'Specificity' may be limited to clinical use, whereas the metrological word 'selectivity' is needed for measurement (VIM3 2.45). An ISO project (Guidance for emerging technologies) has just been initiated precisely because research methods, such as NGS, are often not designed for clinical applications. Therefore, emerging technologies entering medical laboratories should be screened from their glossary and filtered through the guidance of VIM, FDA and the statistical literature. --- Poster n° 165