Context: Large epidemiological studies often collect non-fasting samples, although the reliability of biomarkers may be uncertain.
Objective: To explore the reliability and reproducibility of a single measurement of selected biomarkers in a sub-sample of the Malmö Diet and Cancer cohort.
Methods: We estimated single- and average-measures intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) for oxidized (ox)-LDL, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-α.
Results: Single-measures ICC in non-fasting samples of ox-LDL, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-α were the following: 0.85, 0.71, 0.61, 0.78 and 0.66 for men, and 0.67, 0.81, 0.87, 0.69 and 0.81 for women. Biomarkers at non-fasting and fasting samples were highly correlated (all r > 0.80).
Conclusions: The observed ICC suggest that most of the examined biomarkers (non-fasting blood) would allow meaningful analysis in epidemiological studies.
Keywords: Biomarkers of inflammation; ICC; cytokines; epidemiology; variation.