Establishing Reference Ranges of Hematological Parameters from Malian Healthy Adults

Introduction: Measurement of immuno-hematological parameters has been historically helpful in the diagnosis and treatment monitoring of many infectious diseases and cancers. However, these parameters have not yet been established in many developing countries where patient care strongly relies on such low-cost tests. This study describes the immuno-hematological parameter ranges for Malian healthy adults.

Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted from August 2004 to May 2013. We included 213 healthy volunteers (173 male and 40 female), aged between 18-59 years. Median, 2.5 and 97.5 percentile ranges for each immuno-hematological parameter are presented.

Results: In our study population, the hematological parameters' ranges were mostly different to the universal established ranges. We found in our population a Median white blood cell (WBC) count of 5200 cells/μL [3237.5-11900], Red Blood Cell (RBC) count of 4.94 10^6 [3.56-6.17], hemoglobin (Hb) of 14.2 g/dL [12.2-17.38], platelet count (Plt) of 275 10^3/μL [145.4-614.4], lymphocytes 2050/μL [1200-3800], neutrophils 2200/μL [1040-6220]; monocytes 200/μL [100-660]; eosinophils 131/μL [0-1026]; CD4 902 cells/μL [444-1669] and CD8 485 cells/μL [0-1272]. We found significant gender differences in RBC, Hb level and MPV. However, RBC and Hb were higher in males median values compared to females (median values) (p<0.001), whereas the Mean platelet volume lower values (MPV) in males than females (P<0.047). The hemoglobin level for some West African countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Nigeria) ranged from 13.5 to 15.1 g/dL for males and 12 to 13 g/dL for females. However in East and Southern Africa, the values were anywhere from 14.1 to 16.1 for males and 11.2 to 14.4 for females.

Conclusion: Our data may help physicians to better define hematological abnormalities in patients. They may also be used to define new "normal hematological values" in Malian population or in the whole West African population.