Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate Reference Intervals Determined via VES-MATIC 5 and CUBE 30 Touch with Respect to the...

Area of Science:

• Clinical Chemistry
• Hematology
• Laboratory Medicine

Background:

• Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) is a crucial diagnostic test for assessing patient inflammatory status globally.
• Accurate reference intervals (RIs) are essential for interpreting ESR results and supporting clinical decisions.
• Existing RIs may not fully reflect performance of newer automated analyzers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish reference intervals (RIs) for the VES-MATIC 5 (VM5) and CUBE 30 touch (C30T) automated ESR analyzers.
• To compare the performance of VM5 and C30T against the gold standard ESR method.

Main Methods:

• A total of 989 presumably healthy participants were enrolled from Arezzo Hospital, Italy.
• ESR measurements were performed using the gold standard Westergren method, VM5, and C30T analyzers.
• Reference intervals were established according to Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines.

Main Results:

• Significant differences in ESR were observed between sexes and with increasing age across all methods.
• VM5 and C30T analyzers showed average and median values close to the gold standard.
• Specific RIs were determined for females (1-25 mm/h) and males across different age groups (1-18 mm/h and 1-29 mm/h).

Conclusions:

• The proposed reference intervals for the C30T and VM5 automated analyzers align with the gold standard method.
• These validated RIs can be reliably used for measuring ESR in EDTA blood samples.
• The study provides updated, method-specific RIs crucial for accurate inflammatory status assessment.