posted on 2025-03-13, 11:58authored byJune Fabian, Jaya A. George, Harriet R. Etheredge, Manuel van Deventer, Robert Kalyesubula, Alisha N. Wade, Laurie A. Tomlinson, Stephen Tollman, Saraladevi Naicker
<p dir="ltr">Globally, chronic kidney disease (CKD) is an emerging public health challenge but accurate data on its true prevalence are scarce, particularly in poorly resourced regions such as sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Limited funding for population-based studies, poor laboratory infrastructure and the absence of a validated estimating equation for kidney function in Africans are contributing factors. Consequently, most available studies used to estimate population prevalence are hospital-based, with small samples of participants who are at high risk for kidney disease. While serum creatinine is most commonly used to estimate glomerular filtration, there is considerable potential bias in the measurement of creatinine that might lead to inaccurate estimates of kidney disease at individual and population level. To address this, the Laboratory Working Group of the National Kidney Disease Education Program published recommendations in 2006 to standardize the laboratory measurement of creatinine.</p>