Reference intervals and biological variation in parameters of the thrombin generation test in healthy individuals

Abstract Introduction Establish the referenceintervals (RIs) and analyze biological variability (BV) to introduce the thrombin generation test (TGT) into clinical practice. Methods To determine the RIs parameters of TGT, we analyzed platelet‐poor plasma (PPP) ( n = 123), rich (PRP) ( n = 76), and microparticle‐mediated TGT (MP‐TGT) ( n = 32) in healthy participants. For the BV study, we collected samples from five participants over 5 weeks. A nested analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to evaluate the BV results. Results The between‐individual variation (CV G ), within‐individual variation (CV I ), analytical variation (CV A ) for TGT on PPP for all parameters were from 5.5% to 17.3%, 5.4% to 17.7%, and 2.6% to 5.3%, respectively. For PRP, the CV G , CV I , and CV A were ranged from 3.0% to 23.7%, 8.4% to 23.0%, and 4.1% to 6.9%, respectively. The index of individuality (II) ranged from 0.3 to 3.1 for PPP and from 0.3 to 4.5 for PRP. The reference change value (RCV) for PPP was from 19.8% to 50.1%, while for PRP, it was 27.2% to 66.5%. We recommend using the RIs for the parameters ETP (nM/min): 1101.6–2332.1 and Peak (nM): 163.5–381.3 for PPP and ETP (nM/min): 1088.5–2634.9; Peak (nM): 72.6–210.7 for PRP. The resulting MP‐TGT are highly dependent on age require a larger sample. Conclusion For TGT on PPP and PRP the RIs developed on our population for Peak and ETP parameters can be used. Time parameters: Lagtime and ttPeak, min with II < 0.6, require monitoring over time with RCV calculation.