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Establishing Reference Intervals for Clinical Laboratory Test Results

2010; Oxford University Press; Volume: 133; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1309/ajcpn5bmtsf1cdyp

1943-7722

Alex Katayev, Claudiu Balciza, David Seccombe,

Renal function and acid-base balance

Reference intervals are essential for clinical laboratory test interpretation and patient care. Methods for estimating them are expensive, difficult to perform, often inaccurate, and nonreproducible. A computerized indirect Hoffmann method was studied for accuracy and reproducibility. The study used data collected retrospectively for 5 analytes without exclusions and filtering from a nationwide chain of clinical reference laboratories in the United States. The accuracy was assessed by the comparability of reference intervals as calculated by the new method with published peer-reviewed studies, and reproducibility was assessed by the comparability of 2 sets of reference intervals derived from 2 different data sets. There was no statistically significant difference between the calculated and published reference intervals or between the 2 sets of intervals that were derived from different data sets. A computerized Hoffmann method for indirect estimation of reference intervals using stored test results is proved to be accurate and reproducible.