Department of Laboratory Medicine, Son Espases University Hospital, Palma, Spain.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Son Espases University Hospital, Palma, Spain.
Clin Biochem. 2021 May;91:39-44. doi: 10.1016/j.clinbiochem.2021.01.011. Epub 2021 Feb 2.
In children, thyroid hormones are essential for correct physical and neurological development. The recommended process for defining reference intervals (RIs) is the direct approach; however, indirect methods are an effective alternative. This study aimed to explore age- and sex-dependent relationships between serum concentrations of thyroid hormones in a large population-based cohort of healthy Spanish Caucasian children and calculate RIs.
Results of serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and free thyroxine (fT4) were collected from laboratory data of N (TSH = 23201; fT4 = 20728) patients aged 1 month - 15 years. These results were validated with a prospective study. Analyses of serum concentrations of TSH and fT4 were performed on ARCHITECT i2000 (Abbott Diagnostics, US). Percentiles (2.5th to 97.5th) were determined for each variable and taken as the RI.
No difference was found between serum TSH concentrations in male and female children of all age groups. A difference between serum fT4 concentrations in males and females and an age-dependent correlation for both sexes were found.
There is very little consensus on RIs in children. Our data confirm it is possible to use data mining techniques to calculate reliable and clinically useful RIs.
在儿童中，甲状腺激素对正常的身体和神经发育至关重要。定义参考区间（RI）的推荐方法是直接法；然而，间接方法是一种有效的替代方法。本研究旨在探索在一个大型基于人群的健康西班牙白种人儿童队列中，血清甲状腺激素浓度随年龄和性别变化的关系，并计算 RI。
从年龄在 1 个月至 15 岁的 23201 例患者的实验室数据中收集血清促甲状腺激素（TSH）和游离甲状腺素（fT4）的结果。对这些结果进行了前瞻性研究验证。使用 ARCHITECT i2000（雅培诊断，美国）分析 TSH 和 fT4 的血清浓度。为每个变量确定百分位数（第 2.5 个至第 97.5 个），并作为 RI。
在所有年龄组的男童和女童中，血清 TSH 浓度没有差异。发现血清 fT4 浓度在男性和女性之间存在差异，并且两性均存在与年龄相关的相关性。
儿童的 RI 共识很少。我们的数据证实，可以使用数据挖掘技术来计算可靠且临床有用的 RI。
