Transcripts
DR. BRANDT:
Now, let's discuss kidney function. When we measure kidney function, we're usually trying to get at some measure of glomerular filtration rate. This is the rate at which the blood is filtered by the kidney; normally, it's 90 to 150 milliliters per minute (adjusted for adults by a
standard body surface area.)
And the reason that we do this adjustment is that your GFR increases with body size. Small children have a low GFR, and larger children or adults have a higher GFR. Adjusting for body surface area normalizes the GFR to a standard, allowing an easy comparison between one child and another.
GFR is the most accurate measure of kidney function that we have, and
this is what we're usually trying to get at in one way or another in all the functional studies that we do.
