TY - JOUR TI - Multi-year inter-laboratory exercises for the analysis of illicit drugs and metabolites in wastewater: Development of a quality control system AU - van Nuijs, A.L.N. AU - Lai, F.Y. AU - Been, F. AU - Andres-Costa, M.J. AU - Barron, L. AU - Baz-Lomba, J.A. AU - Berset, J.-D. AU - Benaglia, L. AU - Bijlsma, L. AU - Burgard, D. AU - Castiglioni, S. AU - Christophoridis, C. AU - Covaci, A. AU - de Voogt, P. AU - Emke, E. AU - Fatta-Kassinos, D. AU - Fick, J. AU - Hernandez, F. AU - Gerber, C. AU - González-Mariño, I. AU - Grabic, R. AU - Gunnar, T. AU - Kannan, K. AU - Karolak, S. AU - Kasprzyk-Hordern, B. AU - Kokot, Z. AU - Krizman-Matasic, I. AU - Li, A. AU - Li, X. AU - Löve, A.S.C. AU - Lopez de Alda, M. AU - McCall, A.-K. AU - Meyer, M.R. AU - Oberacher, H. AU - O'Brien, J. AU - Quintana, J.B. AU - Reid, M. AU - Schneider, S. AU - Simoes, S.S. AU - Thomaidis, N.S. AU - Thomas, K. AU - Yargeau, V. AU - Ort, C. JO - TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry PY - 2018 VL - 103 TODO - null SP - 34-43 PB - Elsevier B.V. SN - null TODO - 10.1016/j.trac.2018.03.009 TODO - Epidemiology; Filtration; Laboratories; Quality assurance; Wastewater, Analytical procedure; Concentration values; Illicit drug; Inter-laboratory testing; Laboratory exercise; Laboratory performance; Laboratory set-up; Standard solutions, Quality control, drug metabolite; illicit drug; tap water; water, analytical parameters; concentration (parameters); controlled study; drug dependence; filtration; follow up; human; laboratory; performance; pH; priority journal; quality control; Review; waste water TODO - Thirty-seven laboratories from 25 countries present the development of an inter-laboratory testing scheme for the analysis of seven illicit drug residues in standard solutions, tap- and wastewater. Almost 10 000 concentration values were evaluated: triplicates of up to five samples and 26 laboratories per year. The setup was substantially improved with experiences gained across the six repetitions (e.g. matrix type, sample conditions, spiking levels). From this, (pre-)analytical issues (e.g. pH adjustment, filtration) were revealed for specific analytes which resulted in formulation of best-practice protocols for inter-laboratory setup and analytical procedures. The results illustrate the effectiveness of the inter-laboratory setup to assess laboratory performance in the framework of wastewater-based epidemiology. The exercise proved that measurements of laboratories were of high quality (>80% satisfactory results for six out of seven analytes) and that analytical follow-up is important to assist laboratories in improving robustness of wastewater-based epidemiology results. © 2018 Elsevier B.V. ER -