A Case Control Study of Vitamin D Levels in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Patients and Healthy Volunteers in South Gujarat, India

Introduction: The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) programme states that COPD is a common, treatable, and preventable disease that is characterized by a persistent airflow restriction that usually progresses and is connected to an exaggerated chronic inflammatory response in the airways and the lung to harmful particles or gases. The combined severity of a patient's co-morbid illnesses and exacerbations increases. The purpose of the study was to assess the vitamin D status of COPD patients and healthy participants. Methodology: This case-control study was conducted among 75 cases and 75 control at the Surat Municipal Institute of Medical Education and Research General Medicine department. Result: The mean vitamin D of subjects in cases was 32.21 � 12.68 and it was 52.05 � 1.99 in controls. The difference in vitamin D between the two groups was statistically significant (P Value<0.001). Conclusion: COPD patients had lower amounts of vitamin D. As COPD severity increases, vitamin D levels decrease. Along with a rise in COPD exacerbations, vitamin D levels are also decreasing

Performance Evaluation of Chemiluminescent Immunoassay for Erythropoietin and Establishment of Reference Interval in Korean Population / 임상검사와정도관리

BACKGROUND: The measurement of serum erythropoietin (EPO) is useful for the differential diagnosis of polycythemia and anemia and for treatment monitoring of recombinant human EPO. Radioimmunoassay (RIA) has been used in several clinical laboratories of Korea, and recently a few manufacturers developed fully automated chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA). We evaluated performance of Access EPO assay (Beckman Coulter, USA) using CLIA and established reference interval for Korean adults with this assay. METHODS: The precision, linearity, limit of detection, percent carryover, comparison of Access EPO CLIA and EPO-Trac RIA (DiaSorin Ltd, UK), and establishment of reference interval were determined according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines. The quality control materials were used in the determination of precision, limit of detection, and carryover. For the reference interval, serum specimens obtained from a total of 120 healthy adults were used. RESULTS: The linearity was good (R2=0.998) from 0.5 IU/L to 732.3 IU/L and within-run and total imprecision were 2.1-4.1% and 2.6-4.1%, respectively. The lower limit of detection was 0.259 IU/L and percent carryover was 0.18%. A comparison analysis with RIA assay showed good correlation, with a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.88. The reference interval was from 2.5 IU/L to 30.8 IU/L with nonparametric method. CONCLUSIONS: The Access EPO assay provided suitable performance for linearity, precision, and detection limits for clinical laboratory. As this assay does not need radioactive isotopes and afforded a short turnaround time (<1 hr), it is expected to be clinically useful especially for the outpatients.