Establishment of gender specific reference intervals for hepatic enzymes: A pilot study

Abstract

Reference interval is the common tools used for interpreting various biochemical parameters. The age, gender, diet, ethnicity, socioeconomic conditions affect the physiology of population and thereby affecting the reference intervals. Thus, it is needed to set up our own reference intervals which are specific to particular gender, region and population.To establish the gender specific reference interval for hepatic enzymes at BIMS Hospital, Belagavi.This was a hospital based cross-sectional study involving 450 subjects. The selected subjects were from the general population, health professionals, medical students and those attending the Out-Patient Department (OPD) for general health check ups. The serum Alanine transaminase (ALT), serum Aspartate transaminase (AST), serum Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were estimated based on the recommendations of IFCC without pyridoxal phosphate and serum Gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) by enzymatic colorimetric method. The 97.5 percentile and 2.5 percentile was used to obtain the reference intervals.The serum AST and serum GGT showed the statistically significant difference between the male and female values. Thus separate reference should be considered for both males and females. There was no statistically significant difference in serum ALT and serum ALP levels. Thus generalized reference intervals were established.The study revealed the difference in reference intervals of serum AST and serum GGT between males and females.