Background and objective: The correct management of patients with chronic renal disease depends on an early diagnosis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness, in the daily clinical practice, of the weight/creatinine formula as an indirect measurement of glomerular filtration.
Patients and method: 1,025 ambulatory patients were referred to the Nephrology Laboratory for basic blood and urine analysis. Creatinine clearance was calculated with the standard formula.
Results: A good correlation between the creatinine clearance adjusted for the corporal surface and that estimated by the weight/creatinine formula was observed, especially when creatinine levels were between 1.5-3 mg/dl and patients were older than 60 years. The mean difference between both methods was 6.3 (14.5) ml/min for males and 2.4 (10.5) ml/min for females. The weight/creatinine formula had a sensitivity of 91% and a specificity of 80% to detect a clearance below 50 ml/min.
Conclusions: The weight/creatinine formula underestimates the clearance for normal creatinine values but fits quite well for creatinine levels between 1.5-3 mg/dl, mainly in patients older than 60 years. Although the estimation of clearance through this formula could be inaccurate, in most cases this is clinically irrelevant. Moreover, such a simple formula could avoid potential mistakes appearing at the time of evaluating renal function only by the serum creatinine.