THURSDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- Physicians who rely solely on serum creatinine levels to assess kidney function may miss many cases of chronic kidney disease in older adults, according to a study published in the June issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Sandra V. Giannelli, M.D., of the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues studied 660 Italians aged 65 to 92 with normal serum creatinine. Thirty-nine percent of subjects had moderate renal function impairment according to the Cockcroft-Gault equation and 25 percent had moderate renal function impairment according to 24-hour urine creatinine clearance.
In addition, the prevalence of moderate renal function impairment increased from 18.6 percent in subjects aged 65 to 74 to 96.8 percent in those aged 85 and older according to the Cockcroft-Gault equation, and from 15 percent in subjects aged 65 to 74 to 58.7 percent in those aged 85 and older according to the creatinine clearance calculation.
"This study demonstrates that appropriate methods of assessment can identify an important subset of the older population meeting criteria for chronic kidney disease despite normal serum creatinine," the authors conclude. "Diagnosing these people may allow clinicians to introduce effective treatments to decrease disease progression, better manage comorbidities and their complications, and appropriately choose medications and adjust drug dosage, all components of high-quality medical care."
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