A comparison of plasma electrolyte and urea values in healthy persons and in hospital patients

Abstract

The frequency distributions of plasma electrolyte (chloride, total CO 2, potassium and sodium) and urea values in healthy persons and in patients have been examined. The frequencies of plasma chloride, sodium and urea results in healthy persons were found to fit normal distributions better than log-normal distributions but the opposite was true of total CO 2 results. In the case of potassium, log results had a less skew distribution than actual results but were more platykurtotic. In patients, the results did not fit either normal distributions or log-normal distributions well. In all five tests, the spread of results was appreciably greater than in healthy persons. In addition, mean plasma chloride and sodium were lower than in healthy persons and the mean urea was higher. Analytical errors in the measurement of plasma electrolytes and urea were found to have a frequency distribution which fitted log-normal curves better than normal curves.