Introduction: The association between mean platelet volume (MPV) to platelet count (PC) ratio and prognosis has been demonstrated in some diseases but not in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). In this study, we evaluated the ability of MPV to PC ratio (MPR) to predict short-term mortality in CAP patients. Material and methods: We retrospectively analysed data archived over 10 years and stratified MPR values into quartiles. Relations between MPR (femtoliters/number of thousand platelets per microlitre) quartiles and 60-day mortality were examined. Logistic regression was performed to adjust for confounders, and the Kaplan-Meier method was used for survival analysis. Results: After adjusting for confounding factors, the odds ratios of 60-day mortality for CAP were 2.66 (95% CI: 2.04-3.46) for the fourth MPR quartile (range ≥ 5.19; p < 0.001) versus the first MPR quartile (range ≤ 2.45). Kaplan-Meier curves indicated that a higher MPR was associated with a higher risk of mortality among CAP patients, and this was confirmed by the log-rank test (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Mean platelet volume to PC ratio was found to be positively correlated with short-term mortality. Our data indicate that MPR might be a significant predictive marker of the mortality in CAP. Further prospective studies are required to establish the exact role of MPR in CAP and other diseases.

Choi SJ, Lee S, Lee B, Jang JY, Cho J, Uh Y. Comparison of neonatal reference intervals for 23 biochemical analytes in the cord blood-A single center study in South Korea. Turk J Pediatr 2019; 61: 337-344. Reference intervals for laboratory tests are important in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. However, due to difficulty in recruiting sufficient numbers of reference subjects, studies regarding reference intervals for biochemical analytes in neonates is lacking. The aim of this study was to compare and validate the reference intervals for 23 biochemical analytes in the cord blood of neonates. From August to December 2017, 79 consecutive neonates born at the Wonju Severance Christian Hospital (Wonju, Korea) with C-reactive protein concentration less than 0.05 mg/dL were included in this study. All of 23 biochemical analytes were measured by the cobas 8000 c702 (Roche Diagnostics, Switzerland). Mean &#xb1; 2 standard deviations (SD) were calculated if the values were normally distributed, and median and the range of 2.5-97.5 percentile were described when the values were not normally distributed. We compared the neonatal reference intervals for 23 biochemical analytes. Alkaline phosphatase and gamma glutamyl transferase showed significant differences according to sex, and direct bilirubin revealed significant differences depending on the delivery mode. These compared reference intervals of 23 biochemical analytes will be useful for clinical decision-making in the management of neonates.

We report that the Elecsys SCC automated SCCA assay yielded performance comparable to that of the manual SCCA assay: the automated assay reduced the number of manual steps and test turnaround time.

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