[Reference values for biological parameters in occupational and environmental medicine].
Biological parameters are extensively used in occupational and environmental medicine. They are traditionally evaluated by comparison with normal range. Since 1970's, with the growing skepticism about normal range and researches' progress, the replacing notion of reference values and related theory had gradually come into being with the one which is the most representative, published by International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and International Committee for Standardization in Haematology. This paper introduces those results with emphatic discussion on data processing and statistical procedures. The process of establishing reference limits is illustrated by an example and issues on reference and decision limits, reference band, multivariate reference values are also briefly addressed.
D019550:Environmental Medicine; D006801:Humans; D009787:Occupational Medicine; D012016:Reference Values; D013223:Statistics as Topic