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Abstract The conventional reference intervals found in handouts from the clinical chemistry laboratories are based on groups of presumably healthy individuals, but there are many other types of reference values as well. Reference values are usually derived from healthy individuals (health related), but reference values of patients with well-characterized clinical conditions, for example, a certain disease in a specified stage of development may also be used (disease associated). Laboratory test results are commonly interpreted by comparing each single test result with the corresponding reference values (or limits derived from them). Such a procedure is called a (univariate) comparison. As several different laboratory tests are often performed on each patient sample, the results are, therefore, interpreted by (multivariate) comparison, which is a. straightforward extension of the univariate reference interval to the multidimensional situation |