GFR Measurement
in Clinical Routine

“There is a serious unmet need for accurate assessment of kidney function during and after critical illness where the existing standard diagnostic test, serum creatinine, may be inaccurate or even dangerously unreliable (Chen, Teresa K.; Shlipak, Michael G. Should We Really Still Be Using Creatinine in the Critical Care Setting? Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology 18(8):p 988-990, August 2023).

Accurate knowledge of kidney function is critical for identifying correct dosing of numerous drugs given to the critically ill and for the identification of patients at risk of long term kidney disease, who currently miss opportunities for appropriate treatment and follow-up.

Plasma Iohexol clearance is widely accepted as a contemporary gold standard for the measurement of kidney function (GFR), but has been difficult to operationalise in complex clinical settings. Nephrolyx is innovating technology and systems to bring iohexol measured kidney function to real world clinical medicine. I believe Nephrolyx has potential to fill the existing diagnostic gap in a practical and efficient fashion, which could revolution kidney care during and after critical illness”.

“Glomerular filtration rate is the best way to assess renal function. In daily clinical practice, GFR is estimated by equations using biomarkers like serum creatinine and/or cystatin C.

However, these equations share the same degree of imprecision. In specific population (like in ICU patients, cirrhosis, transplanted patients etc.) the performance of such equations is really very poor. Also, in some specific clinical situations, a high degree of precision for GFR result is required, like for the decision of kidney donation or the dosage adaptation of nephrotoxic drugs.

Simplified but highly reliable methods are available to measure GFR with a high precision. Among them, iohexol plasma clearance is certainly the best balance between availability, physiology and feasibility. Easy protocols are available in the literature and the analytical performance of methods to measure iohexol is excellent”.

“The most widely used contrast media to measure GFR is the non radioactive iohexol clearance. Measurement of iohexol can be achieved with HPLC/ UV or LC-MS/MS methods, which have been developed as in-house methods by the expert labs using it.

For the first time, Nephrolyx offers a commercially available robust and easy to use solution for iohexol determination. This approach does not necessitate big knowledge in chromatography and can be quickly and easily set up in any clinical lab, offering a reference method to clinicians.

Turnaround and hands-on time are particularly limited for the excellent analytical performance”.

"The precise reproducible and reliable measurement of GFR is the cornerstone of kidney medicine. Unfortunately, single measurements of biomarkers are sadly inadequate for this task.

Nephrolyx is addressing this unmet nephrological need using a proven reliable iohexol-based approach."