The procedure and challenges for pediatric reference interval establishment in clinical laboratory

The pediatric reference intervals in clinical laboratory play an important role in diagnosis of illness, therapeutic monitoring, prediction of prognosis and health evaluation. Compared with establishing reference interval for adults, there are more challenges to establish pediatric reference intervals. Therefore, the procedure and key technologies of direct method and indirect method are stated based on the characteristics of children population and pediatric, by which to define, transfer and validate pediatric reference intervals. This study will provide systematically methodological ideas for clinical laboratories to establish pediatric reference intervals.(Chin J Lab Med, 2017, 40: 345-351) Key words: Reference values; Clinical laboratory techniques; Sampling studies; Child