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