Establishment of Age-specific Reference Intervals for Serum Magnesium Concentrations in Healthy Children Aged 0-18 Years: A Comparative Analysis of Non-parametric, Bootstrap, and Gaussian Mixture Model Approaches

Objective: This study aimed to establish age-specific reference intervals (RIs) for serum magnesium (Mg) concentrations in healthy children aged 0-18 years and to compare the derived intervals with manufacturer-provided reference ranges.Methods: This retrospective, cross-sectional study included 1,725 healthy children who presented to the Medical Biochemistry Laboratory of University of Health Sciences Türkiye, Haydarpaşa Numune SUAM between November 1, 2022, and February 18, 2023.Serum Mg was measured using the colorimetric end-point method on the Roche Diagnostics COBAS 8000 (c702 module).RIs were calculated using the nonparametric 2.5 th -97.5 th percentile method according to CLSI EP28-A3c and IFCC guidelines, and validated with bootstrap resampling (95% confidence interval) and Gaussian mixture model (GMM) analysis. ÖZAmaç: Bu çalışma, 0-18 yaş arası sağlıklı pediatrik bireylerde serum magnezyum (Mg) düzeyleri için yaşa özgü referans aralıklarını belirlemeyi ve elde edilen sonuçları üretici firma referanslarıyla karşılaştırmayı amaçlamıştır.