
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 2, 1990                   TAG: 9003022808
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CHOLESTEROL TESTS OFF BASE, STUDY SAYS

CHICAGO - Cholesterol tests were highly inaccurate up to one-fourth of the time, and some widely available portable testing machines had unacceptably high error rates even under ideal lab conditions, researchers said.

Poorly trained operators and improperly set instruments were the primary culprits behind misleading readings, which can cause people to seek unneeded treatment or falsely reassure them they don't need it, the researchers said.

Excess cholesterol in the blood is one of the three main modifiable traits that are linked with increased likelihood of heart disease, the nation's No. 1 killer. The others are high blood pressure and smoking.

In a study in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, all screening results were within an acceptable range of accuracy in only one of four public cholesterol-testing programs.

"The companies that did the best were the ones where their staff had undergone quite a bit of training," said Michelle J. Naughton, a sociologist and lead author of the study.

In a separate study in the journal, Massachusetts researchers tested portable analyzers under ideal lab conditions with professional operators who had been trained by the manufacturers.

The two worst analyzers - the Analyst made by Du Pont Inc. and the Seralyzer made by Miles Laboratories Inc. - were outside the range of acceptable error about one-fourth of the time, researchers said.

by CNB