Abstract
Background: Reference intervals (RIs), which are used as an assessment tool in laboratory medicine, change with age for most biomarkers in children. Addressing this, RIs that vary continuously with age have been developed using a range of curve-fitting approaches. The choice of statistical method may be important as different methods may produce substantially different RIs. Hence, we developed a simulation study to investigate the performance of statistical methods for estimating continuous paediatric RIs.Methods: We compared four methods for estimating age-varying RIs. These were Cole’s LMS, the Generalised Additive Model for Location Scale and Shape (GAMLSS), Royston’s method based on fractional polynomials and exponential transformation, and a new method applying quantile regression using power variables in age selected by fractional polynomial regression for the mean. Data were generated using hypothetical true curves based on five biomarkers with varying complexity of association with age, i.e. linear or nonlinear, constant or nonconstant variation across age, and for four sample sizes (100, 200, 400 and 1000). Root mean square error (RMSE) was used as the primary performance measure for comparison. Results: Regression-based parametric methods performed better in most scenarios. Royston’s and the new method performed consistently well in all scenarios for sample sizes of at least 400, while the new method had the smallest average RMSE in scenarios with nonconstant variation across age. Conclusions: We recommend methods based on flexible parametric models for estimating continuous paediatric RIs, irrespective of the complexity of the association between biomarkers and age, for at least 400 samples.
Methods of spatial cluster detection in rare childhood cancers: Benchmarking data and results from a simulation study on nephroblastoma
