Erythrocytic indices of clinical blood analysis and reference intervals among men and women aged 18–45 years

Relevance. The determination of reference intervals (RI) in clinical blood analysis for erythrocytes and their specific parameters: mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC), and red cell distribution width (RDW), allows us to use these parameters for differential diagnostics of various pathological conditions from variants of norm. Objective. Calculate the RI for erythrocyte parameters of a complete blood count for patients in a certain age group (18– 45 years) with normal indicators of iron homeostasis. The reference ranges may vary depending on the analytical systems and diagnostic reagents used. Material and methods. The study included blood samples from 158 healthy volunteers aged 18–45 years, of whom 127 (80.4 %) were women and 31 (19.6 %) were men. The data were obtained from the «KDL-TEST» company database for the period from 01.01.2023 to 01.01.2024. The criteria for inclusion in the study were: age from 18 to 45 years, clinical blood test results, and iron homeostasis within the RI of the «KDL-TEST» laboratory, absence of signs of an inflammatory process based on normal levels of C-reactive protein (CRP). Analyses were performed using a hematological analyzer Mindray BC- 6800 (manufactured by Mindray, China) and an automatic biochemical analyzer model AU-5800 (Beckman Coulter, USA) using IRON reagents (Beckman Coulter, USA) for the photometric colorimetric method and CRP-latex (Beckman Coulter, USA) immunoturbidimetric method. Results. The studies revealed a decrease in the upper limit of the RI for red blood cells (RBC) and their indices (RBC, HGB, HCT, MCV, MCH, MCHC, RDW-CV) in women compared with the RI of the Russian National Standard (2009), which amounted to 4 % for the number of red blood cells, 5 % for hemoglobin, 2 % for hematocrit, 3.8 % for MCV and 3.5 % for MCH, as well as 4.2 % for MCHC; and a decrease in the upper limit of the RI of erythrocytes and erythrocyte indices (RBC, HGB, HCT, MCV, MCH, MCHC, RDW-CV) in relation to the RI of the Russian National Standard (2009) in men for erythrocytes by 3.9 %, hemoglobin by 4, 6 %, MCV — by 1.9 %, MCH — by 4 %, MCHC — by 5.8 %. No significant differences were found in the values of erythrocytes and their specific parameters, hemoglobin, and hematocrit, between the data of the hematology analyzers Mindray BC-6800 and Sysmex XE series (p >0.05). Conclusions. A decrease in the RI of clinical blood analysis in women and men for some hemogram parameters (RBC, HGB, HCT, MCV, MCH, MCHC, RDW-CV) in comparison with the RI of clinical blood analysis of the Russian National Standard (2009), which are within the generally accepted statistically acceptable deviations, was found. The use of automated hematology analyzers did not significantly affect the RI of erythrocytes or their specific parameters.