Results of a European interlaboratory study for the determination of oxytetracycline in pig muscle by HPLC.

An interlaboratory study was organised in 1996 in order to determine laboratory testing performance for measuring oxytetracycline (OTC) and 4-epioxytetracycline (4-epiOTC) residues in pig muscle. The organisation was designed according to the 'International Harmonised Protocol for Proficiency Testing of (Chemical) Analytical Laboratories' produced by the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC International) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Fourteen National Reference Laboratories (NRLs) out of the 15 asked to participate agreed to analyse the samples. These laboratories were from 13 different European Union (EU) Member States and each participant was allowed to use the extraction method of their own choice but had to use liquid chromatography as the analytical technique. Most of the methods used were based on UV detection (simple wavelength or diode-array detection) but some involved fluorimetric detection. The production of incurred samples was prepared on-site. The OTC and 4-epiOTC concentrations present in the samples were determined by taking the mean of the results (excluding outliers) and the deviation of each result from the assigned value was measured. The performance of the laboratories was evaluated by calculating the 'z-scores'. The results were globally satisfactory and showed that all 14 laboratories were capable of determining OTC and 4-epiOTC in pig muscle with satisfactory accuracy. Only two laboratories obtained a questionable result in terms of repeatability.