Acute kidney injury

a sudden deterioration in the function of the kidneys is known as an acute kidney injury sometimes also called acute renal failure to measure this reduction in kidney function glomerular filtration rate or GFR is normally used which is a measurement of how well the kidneys are filtering the blood the functional unit of the kidney that actually does this is the Nephron made up of the glomerulus which is a modified capillary and as blood passes through it the waste is filtered into the Bowman's capsule GFR is the volume filtered through the glomerulus into the Bowman's capsule and through the Nephron in a given unit of time the filtrate passes along through the proximal convoluted tubule Loop of henle distal convoluted tubule and the distal collecting duct undergoing secretion and reabsorptionas it travels ultimately it forms urine and collects into the renal pelvis and passes into the bladder through the ureter to directly measure this process is difficult we instead use creatinine clearance to estimate the GFR creatinine is a normal breakdown product of creatine released from muscle tissue and this is freely filtered by the glomerulus and is not reabsorbed so fits the kind of substance we need however creatinine is secreted into the filtrate by the peritubular capillaries so it does tend to overestimate the GFR slightly the cockcroft and Gault formula is a famous formula used to estimate the creatinine clearance and therefore GF are taking into account age Mass gender and the serum creatinine as it travels ultimately it forms urine and collects into the renal pelvis and passes into the bladder through the ureter to directly measure this process is difficult we instead use creatinine clearance to estimate the GFR creatinine is a normal breakdown product of creatine released from muscle tissue and this is freely filtered by the glomerulus and is not reabsorbed so fits the kind of substance we need however creatinine is secreted into the filtrate by the peritubular capillaries so it does tend to overestimate the GFR slightly the cockcroft and Gault formula is a famous formula used to estimate the creatinine clearance and therefore GF are taking into account age Mass gender and the serum creatinine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices