Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate Reference Value in Iranian Normal Subjects

Introduction: Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) remains as one of the most reliable tests inclinical practices. ESR is test to reveal inflammatory activity in the body that helps to diagnose ormonitor the progress of an inflammatory disease that can be caused by one or more conditions suchas infections, tumors or autoimmune disease. There are rare reports for determination the referencevalue of ESR in Iranian population.Materials Methods: 92 healthy female and 87 male, 17-50 old years, referred to laboratory ofpars hospital (Tehran, Iran) were included in present study. Blood sample was collected in 0.4mlsodium citrate in Kimased tubes using vacuum phlebotomy method. ESR was done by THERMAdevice (LINEAR Chemicals, SL, Spain). Throughout the study period, ESRs were measured in eachsample within hours after the blood collection. Results were statistically analyzed with SPSSsoftware version 16.0. Calculating the mean and SD were used for Reference range validation and tstudent test for comparisons. value less than 0.05 considered as statistically significance.Results: Mean of the data analysis from Iranian female subjects (mean= 12.16) demonstrate nosignificant difference in compare with European reference value (mean= 12) (Dacie and LewisPractical Hematology, 2016) (p value 0.05). But analyzed data in males (mean 7) showsstatistical significance difference between our results and European reference value (mean=10, pvalue <0.05).Conclusion: ESR is non specific marker of inflammation and is affected by other factors such assex, age…. the results must be used with other clinical findings, the individuals’ health history andresults from other laboratory tests. Regarding the importance of the issue and the lack of norma values for this test, there is demand to assign normal values for ESR in Iranian populationaccording to our results in present study.