CLSI-Derived Hematology Reference Intervals for Healthy Males in Eastern India

Haematological reference ranges are often influenced by individual variables, such as race, age, gender and dietary habits. In addition, ecological factors such as climate and altitudemight affect the parameters, while variations in instrumentation techniques and laboratory personnel involved also contribute to the measurements. Therefore, the currently used reference ranges, which were originally adopted from other countries and mainly refer to European subjects, might be misleading in some cases. This study is an attempt to establish haematological reference ranges for male subjectsfrom Eastern India. Haematological tests, using an automated haematology analyzer, were carried out on 528blood samples from healthy male donors. The population was found to exhibit lowerhaemoglobin (HGB) and platelet (PLT) contents as compared to the standard reference values, although the difference was statistically significant only for the platelet count. Nevertheless, the digression from the international range of data was clinically significant, except for the white blood cells (WBC) and red blood cells (RBC) counts. Finally, the respective reference values for HGB, RBC and hematocrit (HCT) were found to vary significantly with the age group of the subjects. It is expected that the study will facilitate the interpretation and reporting of haematological parameters in Eastern India