title: Establishment of pediatric reference intervals on a large cohort of healthy children.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Reference intervals are essential in assessing the significance of laboratory results. There have been limited studies generating reference intervals from pediatric populations. We have studied a large cohort of healthy children on 3 separate occasions at 2yearly intervals.
  
  
  METHODS
  852 healthy 8year old children were enrolled in a community-based multidisciplinary longitudinal study investigating how early physical activity contributes to health. The same children came back for reassessment at ages 10 and 12years. Blood samples were analyzed for a total of 37 different chemistries, immunoassays or derived values.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Reference intervals were derived for all the analytes for males and females separately.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Whilst our results are largely in agreement with previously published work, we have shown that for a number of analytes, previously published work is distorted by subclinical disease.
authors.affiliation: ACT Pathology, The Canberra Hospital, Canberra, Australia.
authors.forename: Emma K
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Southcott
authors.forename: Jennifer L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Kerrigan
authors.forename: Julia M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Potter
authors.forename: Richard D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Telford
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Waring
authors.forename: Graham J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Reynolds
authors.forename: Antony R A
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Lafferty
authors.forename: Peter E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Hickman
mesh_terms: D001774:Blood Chemical Analysis / Q000592:standards; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006262:Health; D006801:Humans; D007118:Immunoassay / Q000592:standards; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D012737:Sex Factors