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Canadian initiative plans to standardize pediatric reference intervals
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QUEBEC CITY — The establishment of reference values is vital to detecting and monitoring disease, and the Canadian Laboratory Initiative on Pediatric Reference Intervals, known as CALIPER, aims to establish a reference values database of pediatric disease biomarkers.
Speaker Khosrow Adeli, PhD, FCACB, DABCC, head and professor of clinical biochemistry at The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, told Endocrine Today the initiative aims to fill knowledge gaps in the pediatric endocrine practice setting, such that accurate interpretation of laboratory tests can be performed to avoid incorrect diagnoses of diseases in childhood and adolescence.
Khosrow Adeli
“A major problem has been, and continues to be, that we don’t have a very good handle on what is healthy and normal in children of different age and ethnicity,” Adeli said, who is heading the initiative. “If a child has a particular thyroid problem, you want to know what the exact reference values are for a particular age group.”
To date, the initiative, which has received about three-quarters of its funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, has seen a collection of 5,000 blood samples from children. More than half of the samples have been analyzed.
“Our intent is that every child seen at any clinic at any hospital in Canada can benefit from these reference values, in that the child’s physician has good data to go by when assessing that child,” Adeli said.
He noted that adult reference values should not be used for pediatric patients.
“One of the aims is to answer a basic question of what are normal and healthy measurements in children,” he said.
Many reference values that are currently available were generated more than 20 years ago on older technologies and would not be relevant with current testing technology used in clinical laboratories, according to Adeli. Overall, the absence of reliable pediatric reference intervals is a worldwide problem.
For more information:
Adeli K. Closing the gaps in pediatric laboratory reference intervals: The CALIPER initiative. Presented at: Canadian Pediatric Endocrine Group 2013 Scientific Meeting; Jan. 24-26, 2013; Quebec City.
Disclosure: CALIPER is funded by the SickKids Foundation (The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto), Abbott Diagnostics, Beckman Coulter Diagnostics, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Siemens Diagnostics and Roche Diagnostics.