What is gfr test used for?

Are you one of those people who have gone for a medical check-up but never pays attention to the results until your doctor seems visibly concerned? If so, then the chances are that when your doctors begin to throw around terms like Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR), Creatinine Clearance (CrCl), and Renal Function Tests, you might start feeling a little bit uneasy. Well, today is your lucky day because we will take an in-depth look at what the GFR test is all about.

What is GFR?

In simple terms, the glomerular filtration rate or GFR measures how wellyour kidneys filter waste from our blood system by estimating how much creatinine -waste product from muscle activity -is present in your body’s fluids. Consequently,it indicates if there any potential kidney problems or not.

Why take a GFR Test?

There are several reasons why someone should go for a GFR test, including:

  • To detect early-stage kidney diseases
  • Diagnose chronic kidney disease(CKD)
  • Assessing an individual’s body response towards treatment therapy meantto fix CKD-related effects.
  • Estimate drug dosage adjustments as drugs metabolized in kidneys.

Who Should Take the Test?

A GFR examination may be recommended to adults over age 60 years olds with high blood pressure and men aged 40–50 years-old experiencing endocrine abnormalities. Additionally,

individuals displaying traits below should consider taking this test:

  1. Type II Diabetes Symptoms;
  2. Suffering Hypertension;
  3. Having cardiovascular history;

Other grounds examinations may be considered include:

4 History of liver disorder such Ascites.
5 Have Preeclampsia during pregnancy episodes,
6 Display Proteinuria symptoms after evaluation tests conducted on urine sediment samples.

How its Works

Since the GFR test is an estimation, a doctor calculates it by testing your serum creatinine levels and plugging them into an equation-based four variables-creatine levels, age sex, and race. However,various tests can be done to check creatinine levels,such as blood tests that quantifyhow much of the substance is in plasma or urine samples.

The GFR Results

Although terms like “kidney function,” “chronic kidney disease” might sound rather scary,the three words all boil down to one thing: a reduced glomerular filtration rate (GFR).The following range from best to worst.

GFR Category Description
Above 90ml/min Normal Kidney Function
60 – 89 ml/min Mildly Decreased
45 – 59 ml/min Moderately Reduced
. .
. .

The lower your score on this scale means more severe kidney problems you have.Consequently,you will require some medical interventions,to improve your kidneys’ functionality back up.

You see? Not so scary after all. A GFR examination may seem daunting at first glance – but now I bet you realize how straightforward it truly is! If you were previously unsure about why we needed procedures such as these,you’re now one step closer to becoming super-knowledgeable and making better health decisions for yourself or someone else.Age may be catching up with us all,but if we pay attention when our bodies begin behaving differently than usual, there’s no reason why we can’t enjoy prolonged periods of good health!

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