McClearn G E
Center for Developmental and Health Genetics, College of Health and Human Development, Pennsylvania State University, University Park 16802-6501.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1992 Dec 26;673:1-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1992.tb27429.x.
Different types of stability of a biomarker are important properties, influencing the degree of predictability across age (ordinal stability) and the interpretation of quantitative and qualitative change with age (structural stability). These properties may be expected to differ from biomarker to biomarker and may change with age. Any age-related process with individual differences in time of onset of change or in rate of change will necessarily display reduced ordinal stability. Another source of reduced correlation across occasions is the short-term fluctuance of individuals due to cyclic processes and to responsiveness to environmental displacements of biomarker values and recovery therefrom. Structural stability of composite variates may be quite high across relatively short intervals but sufficiently low across longer intervals as to suggest the inappropriateness of simple description of mean changes or differences across these longer time spans. The outcome with multivariate composites raises the issue that single biomarkers may have quite different meanings at different parts of the life span.
生物标志物的不同类型稳定性是重要特性，影响跨年龄的可预测程度（顺序稳定性）以及随年龄的定量和定性变化的解释（结构稳定性）。这些特性可能因生物标志物而异，并且可能随年龄变化。任何在变化开始时间或变化速率上存在个体差异的与年龄相关的过程，必然会表现出降低的顺序稳定性。不同场合之间相关性降低的另一个原因是个体由于循环过程以及对生物标志物值的环境位移的反应性及其从中恢复而产生的短期波动。复合变量的结构稳定性在相对较短的时间间隔内可能相当高，但在较长时间间隔内则足够低，以至于表明简单描述这些较长时间跨度内的平均变化或差异是不合适的。多变量复合的结果提出了一个问题，即单个生物标志物在生命跨度的不同阶段可能具有截然不同的含义。
