Estimating glomerular filtration rates by use of both cystatin C and standardized serum creatinine avoids ethnicity coefficients in Asian patients with chronic kidney disease.

Background: The Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPI) equation is most accurate for estimating glomerular filtration rate (GFR) but requires an adjustment for African-American patients. Estimation equations are also improved with the use of serum cystatin C combined with standardized creatinine. Combination equations have been derived by the CKD-EPI and Chinese investigators. We investigated whether these cystatin C-based equations improve estimation adequately, so that adjustments for ethnicity are not required in a multiethnic Asian population with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 232 stable CKD patients who underwent GFR measurements using 3-sample plasma clearances of (99m)Tc-DTPA, and for whom serum cystatin C and creatinine were quantified.

Results: For all patients, the median biases with cystatin C equations were generally greater than with the CKD-EPI equation, and precision and root mean square error (RMSE) were not significantly better. However, the combination serum creatinine and cystatin C equation improved the precision, RMSE, and percentage of estimated GFR to within 15% and 30% of the measured GFR (57.3% vs 50.0%, 88.4% vs 82.8%, respectively). The derived ethnicity coefficients for the combination equation were all >1 (1.009-1.082) but small, suggesting that coefficients are not required. The Chinese-specific equations were more biased and performed more poorly than the CKD-EPI equation.

Conclusions: The use of a cystatin C and creatinine combination equation for estimating GFR in a multiethnic Asian population with CKD does not require ethnicity coefficients because the derived coefficients are very close to each other.