Session 2 Flashcards
How is kidney function measured?
Glomerular filtration rate
What is the GFR?
Amount of filtrate that is produced from blood flow per unit time
What are the factors that affect the GFR?
Gender Age Size of the individual Size of the kidneys Pregnancy
How does advancing age affect the glomerular filtration rate?
- Declines after 30 years of age
- Rate of decline is 6-7mls/min per decade
- Loss of functioning nephrons
- Some compensatory hypertrophy
What is a bigger problem?
or small kidneys in a big person
Small kidneys in a small person
What is compensatory hypertrophy?
- If the nephron number decreases
- Exisiting nephrons get bigger
- Healthy kidney can also get bigger
- Occurs to much greater extent in childhood
What are the risks associated with compensatory hypertrophy?
- Nephrons have to work harder
- Greater risk of wearing out
- Cortical scarring
What happens to the kidneys and their function in pregnancy?
- GFR increases
- Kidney size increases due to increased fluid volume
- Nephrons number stays the same
GFR is not constant in an individual. True/False
False. It is relatively constant
What does a decline in GFR show?
- Decline in the number of nephrons
- Decline of GFR within individual nephrons
Overall the kidney function has worsened
A patient arrives with significant kidney damage. Their GFR has been stable but recently has decreased. Upon examination, you notice there is kidney hypertrophy. What does this tell you about the kidney function?
The kidney function has declined slowly so GFR didn’t fall until there was significant kidney damage
Why do we need a surrogate marker?
The actual GFR cannot be measured
What is clearance?
The volume of plasma cleared of a substance per unit time where the substance is denoted as ‘x’.
What is the formula for clearance?
from the body
C=A/P
C= clearnace A= amount of substance eliminated from plasma P= plasma concentration of substrate
What is the formula for Renal clearance?
C=(UxV)/Pa
C= clearance U= amount in urine V= urine flow rate Pa= arterial plasma concentration