Pediatric Reference Intervals for Seven Common Coagulation Assays (Technical Briefs‪)‬

Accurate interpretation of pediatric coagulation tests is complicated by the fact that reference intervals for many assays differ from those for adults. In 1992, Andrew et al. (1) reported childhood coagulation reference intervals for ages 1-5, 6-10, and 11-16 years with a minimum of 4 and maximum of 7 individuals at each age, with 20-50 per age group. These results have served as the basis for most pediatric coagulation reference intervals for over a decade. However, with the development of newer reagents, methodologies, and instruments to measure coagulation analytes, results from this study, which was limited by its small size, may be less relevant. In 2002, we initiated a project to collect blood and urine samples from healthy children 7-17 years of age, with the goal of establishing pediatric reference intervals for many laboratory tests (2). The purpose of this study was to determine pediatric reference intervals for 7 coagulation tests associated with common bleeding disorders.