Age- and sex-specific pediatric LMS-Percentiles for Laboratory Parameters enabled by Data mining

Abstract Background:Various laboratory parameters routinely measured in pediatric practice covariate with sex and age. Conventional reference intervals are not suitable to account for this variation. Here we demonstrate construction of continuous LMS percentile curves from routine laboratory data. This allows adequate adjustment for both sex- and age-dependent covariation in childhood.Material and Methods:Anonymized routine blood test results requested by primary health care physicians were collected, outliers excluded and LMS-models generated in R.Results:Percentiles for several biomarkers derived from a regional population were established in the 'LMS' framework and provided here for comparison with etablished reference ranges, discussion and, potentially, clinical use.Conclusion: The reference framework 'LMS' is well-known from pediatric growth charts and can also be used in laboratory medicine.