HAEMATOLOGICAL REFERENCE VALUES IN 0 TO 18 YEARS OLD CHILDREN IN ANKARA REGION

Harmanci K., Suskan E., Ulukol B., Örün U. A., Cin S.

Ankara University Medical School Pediatric Departmant, Ankara, Turkey

 

Very few studies exist in our country and especially in our region to obtain reference values and the few existing studies  are quite outdated. When the criter for choosing the population is taken into consideration the number of relevant studies decrease even further We planned this study to see the effects of social and economic development on heamatological parameters. Another reason for designing this study was establishing more reliable referance values, due to the tecnichal development in the laboratory techniques. We chose 24 regions randomyl, among all suburbs and counties of Ankara, the capital of Turkey. 12 of the regions were selected from suburbs and 12 were from the inner city region. We obtained venous blood samples from each region, by stratifiying the population according to ages and analyzed them in our haematology laboratory’s Coulter Model Max M analyzer.

 

‘’Educational status of the parents’’ and ‘’economical status of the family’’ were taken as the main factors and their effects on each parameter were analyzed to for reference populations There were no significant differences in reference values between the richest and poorest groups. RBC,HGB,HCT and MCV values were lower in the group of children with less educated parents compared to the others.

 

The effects of age and sex were also studied, and age groups were  slimplfy  clinical use of the findings. Comparison of our findings with those found in the literature revealed that hemaglobin levels were lower in 0 to 2 years old babies and adolescents older than 15 in our study.

 

As RDW and MPV are new parameters entering clinical use there were no other values to compare with our findings in Turkish literature. We found mean RDW values as 14,4 % and MPV as 8,9±1,2fl, which were similar to foreign studies. We also found that mean WBC values decreased as age increased.

 

In girls older than 14, hemoglobin, hematocrit and MCV values were significantly lower compared to boys of the same ages (p<0,05). RDW was found to be higher in girls (p<0,05). No effect of sex was found on WBC (p>0,05).

 

 
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