Affiliation:
1. Department of Pathology, B.C. Children's Hospital, Vancouver, Canada
Abstract
Abstract
Age- and sex-specific reference intervals based on the 0.025 and 0.975 fractiles of data derived from a healthy pediatric population are presented for zinc, copper, selenium, iron, ferritin, retinol, alpha-tocopherol, and related analytes in serum. Age was an important covariate for copper, selenium, retinol, and tocopherol, and ferritin in boys. Strong correlations were found between retinol and retinol-binding protein, prealbumin (transthyretin), alpha-tocopherol, and selenium. Tocopherol was highly correlated with both cholesterol and triglycerides. We found no relationship between serum zinc and either retinol or retinol-binding protein. Despite exclusion of children in whom anemia, microcytosis, or variant hemoglobins were found, the 0.025 fractile for iron in several age groups was even less than the concentration considered to indicate poor iron nutritional status.
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Biochemistry (medical),Clinical Biochemistry