The Nordic Reference
Interval Project (NORIP) - Status report 19/4-2002
All data from the
laboratories have now been received. 102 Nordic laboratories have participated,
21 from Denmark, 26 from Finland, 1 from Iceland (samples from 2 laboratories),
30 from Norway and 24 from Sweden. Samples from 3035 reference persons have
been analysed resulting in 124744 measurements, 42964 on plasma and 81757 on
serum.
The
data have been tested for errors, and many have been detected and corrected in
cooperation with the laboratories. The errors have been found by searching for
extreme values in analytical data for reference persons and in control data by
looking at precision and trueness relative to the rest of the laboratories.
Pål
Rustad is responsible for the data base. As you can see from “Preliminary
project data” in “Content of main”, the data calculations have started. The work
will consist of excluding data with bad analytical quality, exclude persons not
consistent with our definition of a reference person based on analytical data
from that person and at last calculate reference limits.
Ari
Lahti and Per Hyltoft Petersen has last autumn been working with criteria for
partitioning reference intervals according to gender, age and other relevant
parameters. The work has resulted in two articles, the first published in the
February issue of Clinical Chemistry. Congratulations!
In connection to the
The XXVIII Nordic Congress in Clinical Chemistry and the XXXV Nordic
Conference on Coagulation, Aug 10-13, 2002, Reykjavik, Iceland, we will arrange a workshop
where we intend to present the results of the project (see “Workshop in Iceland” in “Content”).
When this project is
finished, The Scandinavian Society of Clinical Chemistry (NFKK) will take
responsibility for the bio- and data bank. NFKK by the chairman Ebba Nexø have
started a work to make rules for the administration of the banks, and these
will be discussed at the next meeting of NFKK in February together with some of
the members of the NORIP group.
Heamatology data: As
some of you will know a parallel project to NORIP have been going on for
haematology initiated by Veli Kairisto and Ari Lahti, Finland. All laboratories
in Finland have participated by analysing blood from the same persons as in
NORIP locally the first day and a repeat the second day. The samples have all
also been analysed centrally the second day. In Denmark, Norway and Sweden the
samples have been analysed the first day. All laboratories in Sweden have
participated, some in Denmark and one in Norway. All these data will be
included in the NORIP data base.
Pål Rustad
19/4-2002