title: Recommendations for designing and conducting veterinary clinical pathology biologic variation studies.
abstract: The recent creation of a veterinary clinical pathology biologic variation website has highlighted the need to provide recommendations for future studies of biologic variation in animals in order to help standardize and improve the quality of published information and to facilitate review and selection of publications as standard references. The following recommendations are provided in the format and order commonly found in veterinary publications. A checklist is provided to aid in planning, implementing, and evaluating veterinary studies on biologic variation (Appendix S1). These recommendations provide a valuable resource for clinicians, laboratorians, and researchers interested in conducting studies of biologic variation and in determining the quality of studies of biologic variation in veterinary laboratory testing.
authors.affiliation: IDEXX Laboratories, Ltd., Wetherby, West Yorkshire, UK.
authors.forename: Kathleen P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Freeman
authors.affiliation: Paddington Cat Hospital, Paddington, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Randolph M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Baral
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Navneet K
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Dhand
authors.affiliation: Department of Large Animal Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Søren Saxmose
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.affiliation: Department of Veterinary Clinical and Animal Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Asger L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Jensen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000073537:Biological Variation, Population; D010341:Pathology, Veterinary / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D012016:Reference Values; D012107:Research Design / Q000592:standards; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards / Q000662:veterinary
keywords: Laboratory testing; quality specifications; reference change value