Serum creatinine and creatinine clearance are widely used as measures of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in clinical medicine. Unfortunately, serum creatinine concentrations are not determined only by glomerular filtration (1 ). Alteration in renal handling and metabolism of creatinine and methodological interferences in its measurement may influence the concentrations of serum creatinine (2 )...

To the Editor: We wish to comment on reference intervals for the serum anion gap and osmolality. The serum anion gap, which is most commonly defined as AG 5 Na-Cl-TCO2, traditionally has had a reference interval of 8 –16 mmol/L with a mean value (i.e., mean of values used to determine its reference interval) of 12 mmol/L (1, 2). In a recent report (3), the stated reference interval for the anio...

OBJECTIVES To validate new references charts and equations for fetal biometry in an Italian unselected population. METHODS A cross-sectional study involving 4896 women with singleton viable pregnancies, at Artemisia Fetal Maternal Medical Centre between May 2009 and December 2009. Each woman was scanned only once, between 14+0 and 40+0 weeks of gestation. The fetal standard biometric measurem...

A solitary report in the literature suggests that determination of phosphohexose isomerase (PHI; glucosephosphate isomerase, EC 5.3.1.9) activity in aqueous humor and serum may be a useful adjunct in the diagnosis f retinoblastoma (1). The aqueous humor/serum PHI ratio of 20 patients with retinoblastoma was compared with that for eight “controls” having intraocular diseases other than retinobla...

BACKGROUND Improvement in reference interval estimation using a new outlier detection technique, even with a physician-determined healthy sample, is examined. The effect of including physician-determined nonhealthy individuals in the sample is evaluated. METHODS Traditional data transformation coupled with robust and exploratory outlier detection methodology were used in conjunction with vari...

This retrospective study examined 8 cases of pathologically diagnosed insulinoma. Surgical intervention was performed in all cases, once insulinoma was suspected based on unique clinical signs, hypoglycemia, and/or findings on ultrasonography. At the same time, insulin and glucose concentrations were measured before surgery for clinical diagnosis. Although all cases displayed typical clinical s...

A 77-year-old woman with a history of excessive bleeding and questionable diagnosis of von Willebrand disease (VWD) presented for a presurgical evaluation. Her daughter and grandson also had a history of a bleeding disorder. Bleeding events reported by the patient and her family members included easy bruising, postsurgical bleeding and hematoma formation requiring intervention with drainage and...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The diagnostic accuracy of thyroid dysfunctions is primarily affected by the validity of the reference interval for serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH). Thus, the present study aimed to establish a reference interval for TSH using a normal Korean population. METHODS This study included 19,465 subjects who were recruited after undergoing routine health check-ups. Subjects w...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Hyperhomocysteinemia has been shown to be an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Assessing the reference intervals for homocysteine among young adults is a critical step in the process of preventing cardiovascular diseases later in life. This study aimed to identify reference intervals for total serum homocysteine concentration in young adults. METH...

OBJECTIVES This study was conducted to determine the reference interval of serum thyroid hormones (TSH, FT3, FT4) in healthy Korean adults. METHODS Health examination data from 1,591 healthy Korean adults who visited an university hospital were analyzed. Patients with specific health conditions capable of altering laboratory results were excluded from the study. Serum thyroid hormones were me...