Ahmed S, Zierk J, Siddiqui I, Khan AH. Indirect determination of serum creatinine reference intervals in a Pakistani pediatric population using big data analytics. World J Clin Pediatr 2021; 10(4): 72-78 [PMID: 34316440 DOI: 10.5409/wjcp.v10.i4.72]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Sibtain Ahmed, FCPS, MBBS, Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, The Aga Khan University, Sopari Wala Building, Stadium Road, Karachi 74800, Sindh, Pakistan. sibtain.ahmed@aku.edu
Research Domain of This Article
Medical Laboratory Technology
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Pediatr. Jul 9, 2021; 10(4): 72-78 Published online Jul 9, 2021. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v10.i4.72
Indirect determination of serum creatinine reference intervals in a Pakistani pediatric population using big data analytics
Sibtain Ahmed, Jakob Zierk, Imran Siddiqui, Aysha Habib Khan
Sibtain Ahmed, Imran Siddiqui, Aysha Habib Khan, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, The Aga Khan University, Karachi 74800, Sindh, Pakistan
Jakob Zierk, Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen 91054, Germany
Author contributions: Ahmed S designed and conceived the idea, performed the literature review/comparison, interpreted the data and performed the majority of the write up in the first draft; Zierk J performed the statistical analysis, assisted in the write up of the first draft and critically reviewed the manuscript; Siddiqui I critically analyzed the results and reviewed the manuscript; Khan AH assisted with data acquisition and critically reviewed the manuscript; all the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of the submitted manuscript and approved submission.
Institutional review board statement: Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Ethical review committee of the Aga Khan University, No. 5348-Pat-ERC-18.
Informed consent statement: Not applicable as no intervention was undertaken and only laboratory test results were statistically analyzed keeping patient identification anonymized.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are nothing to declare.
Data sharing statement: Dataset available from the corresponding author at sibtain.ahmed@aku.edu. Consent was not obtained as the presented data are anonymized and risk of identification is low.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sibtain Ahmed, FCPS, MBBS, Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, The Aga Khan University, Sopari Wala Building, Stadium Road, Karachi 74800, Sindh, Pakistan. sibtain.ahmed@aku.edu
Received: January 20, 2021 Peer-review started: January 20, 2021 First decision: February 15, 2021 Revised: February 16, 2021 Accepted: April 20, 2021 Article in press: April 20, 2021 Published online: July 9, 2021
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
Population specific reference intervals (RIs) are pivotal for laboratory results interpretation.
Research motivation
The indirect methods of RIs establishment based on big data analytics overcome the challenges and the cost associated with the conventional direct approach.
Research objectives
To establish RIs for serum creatinine (CREA) levels in Pakistani children using an indirect data mining approach.
Research methods
RIs were calculated using a previously validated indirect algorithm developed by the German Society of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine’s Working Group on Guide Limits.
Research results
The lower and upper RIs were calculated based on 36766 CREA results obtained from 21920 males and 14846 females.
Research conclusions
These RIs generated for serum CREA demonstrate the complex age- and gender-related dynamics occurring with physiological development.
Research perspectives
This indirect approach can be easily adopted by laboratories in resource constrained regions and the RIs generated will provide more accurate comprehension of laboratory reports in order to facilitate clinical care.
