Paediatric Reference Ranges Flashcards
What are factors affecting Reference intervals for Children and Babies?
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Body Size
- Creatinine – marker of renal function and proportional to muscle mass. Males have higher reference ranges due to their muscle mass. Smaller individuals have lower reference ranges
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Gender – effect on number of steroid hormones
- Boys vs Girls Testosterone
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Pubertal development
- Testosterone and Tanner Stage
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Growth
- Alkaline Phosphatase – indicative of velocity of growth
- IGF-1 – marker of growth
What is required for deriving reference intervals for CLSI?
Defined that there should 120 individuals in each definable category for example 120 males, 120 females.
What are some issues with CLSI in defining the reference intervals?
- Ethics can be problematic in paediatrics
- Finding sufficient numbers of ‘healthy’ subjects for each age bin, gender or other determinant can be a challenge
- Sample volumes required vs available/possible can be limiting. Can make neonates anaemic with volume of blood taken
Need alternatives that are statistically and clinically valid
What is used to define reference interval or statistically normal range?
- The Reference Interval is a 95% confidence interval i.e. the Mean ±2 Standard Deviations.
- That is to say, 95% of ‘healthy’ people have values that fall inside this range. It follows that 2.5% have values above the upper limit and 2.5% have values below the lower limit
- D-Lactate is an example of when the reference range is not particularly helpful as clinical correlation is not clear
- Creatinine has a low index of individuality and the reference range may not be helpful
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How does index of individuality affect the reference interval?
- Reference intervals are not very useful for managing individual patients if a test has an Index of Individuality of <0.6. (The IOI is the ratio of Intraindividual CVi to group CVg).
- Index of Individually of >1 is ideal as this means the population reference range is generalisable and applicable to patients
What are the benefits associated with age partioning?
- Partitioning of reference intervals into separate subclasses according to age, gender, ethnicity or ‘other’ is advisable when a clinical foundation or a logical physiological basis.
- Partitioning is a valuable tool for enhancing the diagnostic power of reference intervals.
How is is Creatinine affected in Paediatric AKI?
- Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) affects ~1 in 5 adults admitted to hospital in an emergency: studies suggest about a third are preventable.
- Likely that much of this true in paediatric patients although more children are likely to be already in sub-speciality care (oncology or cardiac)
- First step to developing a uniform system for interventions is to establish and agree a method for identifying children with AKI
How does Creatinine measured in Neonates?
- Babies under 1 month, possibly 6 months, should be excluded from algorithm and eGFR.
- Physiologically, there is a change in the early hours of life so therefore if the delta check was used for neonates in AKI then it would be incorrectly triggered
What are some serial changes in Creatinine from birth?
- Creatinine levels are high at birth and fall within the first month of life.
- Levels (and the rate of drop) are variable and dependant on gestational age and birth and birth weight.
- There is a surge and fall in neonates in the first days of life.
What are anabolic changes in Testosterone functions?
- Bone formation
- Erythropoiesis
- Muscle bulk
- Prostate growth
- Growth promoting effects on somatic tissues
What are androgenic of testerone functions?
- Effects to male reproductive tract and secondary male characteristic
- Ejaculation
- Libido
- Erections
- Prenatal Differentiation
What are causes of primary hypogonadism?
- Aging – loss of Leydig cells
- Chemotherapy/radiation
- Cryptorchidism
- Chromosome abnormalities (such as Klinefelter syndrome)
- HIV/AIDS
- Mitotic Dystrophy
- Orchitis (for example mumps)
- Testicular loss from trauma, tumor
What are causes of Secondary Hypogonadism?
- Aging
- COPD
- Diabetes
- Haemochromatosis
- HIV/AIDS
- Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadism
- Kallman’s Syndrome
- Medication-induced such as anti-oestrogens for treatment of prostate cancer
- Obesity
- Pituitary mass lesion
- Prolactinoma
- Psychological stress
- Uraemia/Chronic renal failure
What are causes of combined hypogonadism?
- Aging
- Cirrhosis
- Sickle cell disease
What are testosterone age-related reference intervals?
- Levels in very first months of life are high and then fall
- As children get older, testorone tends to rise