Haematological parameters of Malaysian junior athletes during an out of competition season

Abstract

Summary Objectives Reference values of hematologic parameters are imperative not only in clinical applications but also for monitoring of banned substances in sports. Since the values can be highly influenced by sexes, genetic origins and geographical factors, we assessed the haematological parameters of junior athletes from the Malaysian population. This study aimed to establish local haematological reference values of athletes and to compare the variation of these values between several sub-populations. Methods Complete blood count and erythropoietin level quantification were performed on a total of 126 subjects from 3 major ethnic groups to measure 11 haematology parameters. Independent Sample T-Test and Analysis of Variance were done in order to access the variation between several sub-populations. Results Results showed that 7 out of 11 haematology parameters were significantly different (P ≤ 0.05) among groups of gender and ethnicity. The variations between genders were seen in the red blood cell, haemoglobin, haematocrit, mean cell haemoglobin corpuscular, platelet and OFF-Score values. The values of mean corpuscular volume and mean cell haemoglobin corpuscular were found to be significantly different between ethnic groups. We also found that our haematological reference ranges for junior athletes fall within the previously established local population ranges. Conclusions The hematologic parameters have been proven to be highly influenced by sex and ethnicity of athletes. In this work, we managed to establish the reference ranges of hematologic parameters among Malaysian junior athletes. The data also included the values for reticulocytes, OFF-Score and serum erythropoietin that have never been reported before for the local population.