Effect of age and gender on reference intervals of red blood cell distribution width (RDW) and mean red cell volume...

Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) was recently shown to be age-dependent when using Sysmex XE-2100 hematology analyzers. As measuring RDW is subject to technology, we have investigated if this relation also exists when using a different hematology analyzer, Abbott CELL-DYN Sapphire. In addition, as RDW is generally expressed relative to mean red blood cell volume (MCV), we have explored how MCV influences the age-dependency of RDW.

We measured RDW and MCV in a large cohort and calculated RDW-SD (the "absolute" RDW), which does not contain MCV. For establishing reference intervals we used Bhattacharya statistics.

In our study cohort of 8089 individuals we found a strong association between RDW and age, but not with gender. Also MCV showed an age-related increase over the entire age range. The conventional RDW increased by 6% from the youngest to oldest age class, whereas RDW-SD increased by nearly 15%. This difference was caused by a mean age-related increase in MCV of 6.6%. Age-dependent reference intervals were established for RDW, RDW-SD and MCV.

The age-dependency of RDW seems to be a universal biological feature rather than related with a single type of hematology analyzer. As not only RDW, but also MCV increases with age, we propose that future studies on the prognostic significance of RDW take its age-dependency into account and focus on RDW-SD as a potential marker of adverse events in many clinical conditions.