Reference Limit Estimation Using Routine Laboratory Data

Uses an indirect method based on truncated quantile-quantile plots to estimate reference limits from routine laboratory data: Georg Hoffmann and colleagues (2024) . The principle of the method was developed by Robert G Hoffmann (1963) and modified by Georg Hoffmann and colleagues (2015) , and Frank Klawonn and colleagues (2020) , (2022) .

reflimR: Reference Limit Estimation Using Routine Laboratory Data

The reflimR package provides a simple and robust three-step procedure for the estimation of reference intervals from routine laboratory data that may contain an unknown proportion of pathological results. Reference intervals play a crucial role in the medical interpretation and statistical evaluation of laboratory results.

Installation

To install the reflimR package, open R and enter the following command in the console:

install.packages("reflimR")

This command will download the package from CRAN. Once the installation is complete, load the package into your R session using the following command:

library(reflimR)

The package will then be ready for use in your R environment (e.g. in RStudio). To see the documentation of the package with all its help files, please enter

help(package = reflimR)

Usage

Here is a basic example demonstrating how to use reflimR:

library(reflimR)

x <- c(rnorm(800, 100, 10), rnorm(100, 70, 15), rnorm(100, 125, 15))
reflim(x, targets = qnorm(c(0.025, 0.975), 100, 10))

Publication

reflimR has been published in: Hoffmann, G., Klawitter, S., Trulson, I., Adler, J., Holdenrieder, S., & Klawonn, F. (2024). A Novel Tool for the Rapid and Transparent Verification of Reference Intervals in Clinical Laboratories. Journal of clinical medicine, 13(15), 4397. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13154397