Clinical chemistry normal ranges of healthy adult population in Nong Khai, Thailand

Abstract

Normal range is a range of values used for clinical decision-making in early diagnosis, prediction and therapeutic monitoring of diseases. Due to the lack of a locally-established normal range, western population ranges acquired from reagent companies are commonly used for patients. Clinical normal ranges are in high demand for clinical trials and practice studies. Improvement of the normal range for the population in northeastern Thailand would be valuable for the development of healthcare quality. A newly-established range could act as control for a normal population for laboratory testing in nearby regions and countries. This study was initiated in October 2553 and lasted until May 2561 using 2,589 healthy adults who visited a hospital in Nong Khai, Thailand for health check-ups. In terms of laboratory testing, 6 clinical chemistry tests consisted of AST, ALT, ALP, Creatinine, HDL, and LDL. For data management and statistical analysis, STATA 10.1 software was used to manage and analyze the laboratory results data. Each group of samples was tested with mean, median and percentile range for all parameters to establish new normal ranges for the population. Data mining and a filtering model were created based on normal reference ranges. This model was used to filter only a population of healthy adults. The dataset of 91,829 recorded laboratory results from 9,398 people, with only 30,296 records from 1,051 men and 1,538 women enlisted for further study. This study provides a simple guideline that can serve as a model for clinical laboratories intending to establish their own normal ranges with local data.