Iron levels? Any experts out there?

[Oneminutespeace1]

Hi,

My iron blood test results have just come back as follows.
Does anyone understand the 'ROCHE Ferritin', by any chance, please?

Iron - 18.4 umol/L ('normal range' 5.83 - 34.5)
Transferrin - 2.18 g/L ('normal range' 2 - 3.6)
Transferrin Saturation - 32% ('normal range' 15 - 50)

And then this is the one I don't understand:
ROCHE Ferritin - 31 ug/L ('normal range' 13 - 150)

The lab naturally won't comment on the results and I can't speak to a doctor for a month. The lab have however said that ROCHE is the test provider and that they switched to this new test provider last November. They cannot comment on the ranges.

All my previous Ferritin results have been labelled 'Serum Ferritin' and the result has been, for example, 51 ug/L - with a totally different 'normal range' of 10 - 291.

Thank you so much for your help!

Roche is just the company, they make a lot of different tests -chlamydia, urine dip test strips etc.

I know you will get told ferritin is normal, we are always told it’s normal, but most of us feel awful in the lower end of the reference range. Normal isn’t the same as optimal so you would feel far better at say 90 than you would at 14.

Ferritin reference ranges are assay-specific. The Roche Diagnostics kit specifies expected values of 30-400 ng/mL for men and 13-150 ng/mL for women [13]
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0009912020308833

https://ukhealthcarepavilion.com/companies/roche-diagnostics-uk/

Thank you so much! So Roche are measuring the exact same thing as the previous test supplier, but they’ve decided the ‘normal’ range for women is 13 - 150, rather than the original lab who’d decided that the ‘normal’ range for a woman is 10 - 291? Exact same test, just a different supplier? So as far as I’m concerned in my head, as I read the results side by side (old and new), they are 100% comparable and the reference ranges ‘should’ be the same?

I know what you mean but assuming their test performs differently, possibly due to equipment, as their reference range for normal is half the amount of the old one.
Many labs can differ slightly anyway, area to area.

Different laboratories use different kinds of equipment and different kinds of testing methods. That means they have to establish their own ranges, and will provide your test result with an accompanying reference range appropriate to the laboratory
https://labtestsonline.org.uk/articles/laboratory-test-reference-ranges#:~:text=Different%20laboratories%20use%20different%20kinds,range%20appropriate%20to%20the%20laboratory.

Mind boggling. I was under the impression that ferritin tests had more or less similar reference ranges globally. Typical that they change it right now just to confuse me! 😂 Thank you so much for your time and guidance.

Just noticed that according to the article that you posted from Sciencedirect.com, “Package insert RIs for the Roche Elecsys® immunoassay do not include expected values for pediatric (<17–20 years) or geriatric (>60 years) individuals; furthermore the female ranges were established in mostly premenopausal volunteers.” So in the establishing the reference range for women, they only included women between the ages of 17 and 60 - ie those most at risk of low iron due to blood loss from menstruation, childbirth et cetera. This would explain the dramatically different reference range, as so many women in this category are iron deficient.