Handbook of Nonpathologic Variations in Human Blood Constituents

This book brings together information currently scattered throughout the medical and scientific literature about non-pathological changes in the concentration of blood constituents. The author discusses these variations, which may be statistical, methodological, physiological, age-related, alcohol-related, or due to smoking or drug use. These are important variations and must be taken into account by clinicians when interpreting laboratory results. The handbook offers a quantitative account of variation in the concentration of blood constituents with recommendations for international units of measurement, reference interval determination, and selection of reference subjects. This helpful guide includes more than 1,500 references covering the whole period of development of clinical chemistry, and provides an important historical perspective. Previously unpublished results from the author's laboratory are also included for healthy subjects of different sex and age, as well as the distribution of serum bilirubin obtained from over 3,000 hospital staff members.