Thursday, May 21, 2009

How Do You Calculate GFR?


GFR = Glomerular Fitration Rate

It's an indication of how your kidneys are functioning. In medical school, we learned all sorts of formulas to calculate the GFR. Now with medical smartphones and PDAs, we can simply punch in the numbers and get an estimated GFR very easily.

The CKD-EPI (Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration) has proposed a new equation to calculate GFR and they published this in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Titled, "A New Equation to Estimate Glomerular Filtration Rate," this article outlines how the CKD-EPI equation performed better than the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease Study (MDRD) equation, especially at higher GFR, with less bias, improved precision, and greater accuracy. Will this replace the Cockcroft-Gault Calculator?

3 comments:

  1. Great! Let's see a smartphone/PDA version of the The CKD-EPI (Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration) equation!

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  2. The CKD-EPI equation can now be used (and compared to MDRD) on the iPhone App 'Neph Calc' by QxMD Software.

    Freely available via the iPhone App Store or via iTunes

    Learn more about QxMD

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