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Q:
Ms Fu is 53 years old. Recently she has ache waist and frequent urination. She doubts that her kidney function gets wrong. Someone tells her serum creatinine test can find out whether there is problem with your kidneys so Fu goes to hospital for a serum creatinine test. The result shows that her creatinine level is within the normal range. In this condition, Fu sets her heart at rest and goes home. However, from then on, her back pain and frequent urination have no improvement. Why?
A:
To this, kidney disease experts explain that serum creatinine is a common indicator for measuring kidney function. However, serum creatinine level cannot reflect kidney function timely and exactly. Therefore, normal creatinine level cannot indicate there is no problem with your kidney function.
You may also suffer from kidney disease even with normal serum creatinine level.
Experts say that creatinine is mainly the product of muscle protein degradation. It will be generated by the body every day. The level of creatinine indicates the severity of kidney damage. But creatinine level is not a sensitive indicator. Only when at least kidney function is damaged creatinine level will rise. Therefore, serum creatinine level does not reflect early and mild kidney function damage.
Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) is a golden standard of measuring kidney function and it is the indicator recognized by the world. GFR can reflect every stage of renal function changes.
If serum creatinine level is close to maximum level, it should be treated as early as possible. Patients should go to hospital for kidney disease experts to know their kidney function clearly. Kidney disease patients and patients with kidney disease caused by diabetes, high blood pressure, and gout should test GFR regularly.
