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In medicine and health-related fields, a reference range or reference interval is the range or the interval of values that is deemed normal for a physiological measurement in healthy persons. It is a basis for comparison for a physician or other health professional to interpret a set of test results for a particular patient. Some important reference ranges in medicine are reference ranges for blood tests and reference ranges for urine tests.
The standard definition of a reference range originates in what is most prevalent in a reference group taken from the general population. This is the general reference range. However, there are also optimal health ranges and ranges for particular conditions or statuses.
Values within the reference range are those within normal limits. The limits are called the upper reference limit or upper limit of normal and the lower reference limit or lower limit of normal. In health care–related publishing, style sheets sometimes prefer the word reference over the word normal to prevent the nontechnical senses of normal from being conflated with the statistical sense. Values outside a reference range are not necessarily pathologic, and they are not necessarily abnormal in any sense other than statistically. Nonetheless, they are indicators of probable pathosis. Sometimes the underlying cause is obvious; in other cases, challenging differential diagnosis is required to determine what is wrong and thus how to treat it.