Commercial lyophilized human sera used by medical laboratories for quality control are very expensive and of limited availability. Bovine serum preserved with ethylene glycol has been known to be a cost-effective and efficient quality control material. The objective of this research is to assess the performance of bovine serum and bovine serum with adjusted analyte concentrations as internal quality control materials. Materials and Methods: About 400 millilitres ofvenous blood was taken from the jugular vein of fifty adult cattle. The serum was pooled and preserved in a sterile bottle with ethylene glycol. The study was in two phases. In phase one, three aliquots of the bovine serum were analysed weekly for a month. In phase two, the glucose concentration in the stock bovine serum was raised by the addition of a calculated amount of analytical grade glucose. Three aliquots were analysed weekly for a month. The mean, standard deviation (SD), and coefficient of variation (CV) were calculated for the analytes analysed in the two phases. Results: The study showed that bovine serum and bovine serum with adjusted analyte concentrations are highly reproducible. Conclusion: Bovine serum promises to be a suitable supplement to commercial quality control materials that are used for assessment of internal quality control.

Keywords : Analytes, Bovine serum, quality control material, medical laboratory.