Age-and sex-specific reference intervals for blood chemistry analytes in Kuwaitis aged 15 years and older

ABSTRACT

There are no published reference intervals for blood chemistry analytes for Kuwaitis and yet this is important for proper management of patients. The purpose of this study was to determine the age arid sex-specific reference intervals for routine blood chemistry analytes for Kuwaitis aged 15 years arid over. Using a stratified sampling method, 2500 Kuwaiti households were selected from the governorates in Kuwait. Subjects aged 15 years and over who volunteered to give blood were selected randomly to represent the age and sex distribution of the Kuwaiti population. They were visited in their homes and blood samples were drawn and analyzed for blood chemistry analytes on the Beckman's Synchron Coulter LX 20 autoarialyser. The reference interval, mean value, median value, and standard deviation for each analyte was reported for males and females and for four age groups [15-24, 25-44, 45-59 and 60-79 years]. Kuwaitis had lower serum creatinine but higher serum cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL-cholesterol and uric acid concentrations than the commercially available reference intervals currently in use at the Ministry of Public Health Hospitals in Kuwait. Age-dependent differences existed for glucose, urea, potassium, calcium, phosphate, albumin, total cholesterol, triglyceride, alanine aminotransferase and LDL-cholesterol. Sex differences existed for blood urea, creatinine, albumin, HDLcholesterol, uric acid, total bilirubin and aspartate transaminase. We did not find any significant differences in blood chemistry analytes between people from the different governorates in Kuwait. We produced age and sex-specific reference intervals for blood chemistry analytes in Kuwaitis aged 15 years and older. Since the values obtained are different from the commercial reference intervals, we