Communications of the ACM
National Task Force Recommends Removing Race from Kidney Function Equation
The task forces final report recommends that U.S. clinical laboratories immediately implement a newly refit CKD-EPI creatinine equation that does not incorporate race information.
Credit: Kidney Resource Center, Washington University School of Medicine
A joint national task force of the American Society of Nephrology and the National Kidney Foundation is recommending immediate implementation of a new diagnostic equation for measuring kidney function that eliminates race from the kidney function algorithm.
The current equation assigns a higher estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), an estimate of how much creatinine is in a patient's blood, to patients who self-identify as Black.
As a result, Black patients need a higher creatinine level than white patients to be added to the transplant waiting list.
The task force's final report calls for the widespread use of the protein cystatin C as a biomarker of kidney health, instead of or in addition to creatinine.
From Penn Medicine News
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2021 SmithBucklin, Washington, DC, USA
No entries found