ABSTRACT
Official documents onthe subject of reference ranges (e.g., the reports of the IFCC Expert Panel on Reference Values) devote much more attention to criteria for selection and treatment of reference subjects than they do to the recommended number of subjects. This is not unreasonable because a relatively small but demographically homogeneous group of subjects provides a more useful reference range, if applied to patients having the same characteristics, than does a large collection of persons with highly varied demographic characteristics. Moreover, unless certain rules of pre-analytical behavior and treatment of subjects are followed, the resulting measurements may be more misleading than helpful.
