SCIENTISTS generally estimate the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) — a measure of kidney function — by assessing the levels of creatinine or cystatin C in the body.
Current equations for estimated GFR (eGFR) that use creatinine or cystatin C incorporate age, sex, and race to get this measurement.
However, the inclusion of race in these calculations is coming under increasing scrutiny. The reason for this is that race is a social construct, not a biological one.
Now, a recent study has evaluated the accuracy of GFR-estimating equations that use race, comparing them with new equations that do not factor in race. Racial disparity in medical practice is not a new phenomenon.
However, conversations addressing disparities have only recently taken on a new urgency in the healthcare industry.
One example is an increase in the awareness of the consequencesTrusted Source of using race as a factor in the diagnosis and treatment of kidney disease.
In a new study, scientists have shown that using race-free equations for calculating kidney function — while still assessing creatinine and cystatin C — leads to more accurate results and smaller differences between Black and non-Black people.
Medical News Today spoke with the study’s corresponding author, Dr. Neil Powe, MPH, MBA, leader of the University of California San Francisco Medicine Service at the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
He said that the results of the study show how important it is for any clinical research that informs interventions in medicine to recruit a diverse group of participants.
“We found a path forward for estimating kidney function that was a victory for patients, a victory for valuing evidence-based medicine, and a victory for the trainees who were troubled by using race to estimate GFR.”
“We need to do more to discover the drivers of health disparities and do our best to devise interventions to address them,” he concluded.
The study findings appear in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The study compared the current Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration equations for estimating kidney function with two new equations that do not incorporate race.
