Indexing Glomerular Filtration Rate to Body Surface Area: Clinical Consequences in Patients With Extreme Body Sizes

Kidney function is mostly expressed in terms of glomerular filtration rate (GFR). A common feature is the expression as ml/min per 1.73 m², which represents the adjustment of the individual kidney function to a standard body surface area (BSA) to allow comparison between individuals. We investigated the impact of indexing GFR to BSA in cancer patients, as this BSA indexation might affect the reported individual kidney function.

BSA-GFR in patients with a BSA <1.60 m² overestimated GFR with a bias of 10.08 ml/min (11.46%) and underestimated GFR in those with a BSA >2 m² with a bias up to −20.76 ml/min (−23.59%). BSA is not a good normalization index (NI) in patients with extreme body sizes. Therefore, until a better NI is found, we recommend clinicians to use the absolute GFR to calculate individual drug chemotherapy dosage as well as express individual kidney function.

Read more:
Indexing Glomerular Filtration Rate to Body Surface Area: Clinical Consequences

Source: Journal of Clinical Laboratory Analysis


______________________________________________________________

Follow Art and Science of Laboratory Medicine on


_____________________________________________________________