MDRD vs. CKD-EPI in comparison to ⁵¹Chromium EDTA: a cross sectional study of Malaysian CKD cohort

Accurate measurement of renal function is important: however, radiolabelled gold standard measurement of GFR is highly expensive and can only be used on a very limited scale. We aim to compare the performance of Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) and Chronic Kidney Disease-Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPI) equations in the multi-ethnic population attending University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC).

This is a cross-sectional study recruiting patients, who attend UMMC Nephrology clinics on voluntary basis. 51-Chromium EDTA (⁵¹Cr-EDTA) plasma level was used to measure the reference GFR. The serum creatinine was determined by IDMS reference modified Jaffe kinetic assay (Cr_Jaffe). The predictive capabilities of MDRD and CKD-EPI based equations were calculated. Data was analysed using SPSS version 20 and correlation, bias, precision and accuracy were determined.

A total of 113 subjects with mean age of 58.12 ± 14.76 years and BMI of 25.99 ± 4.29 kg/m² were recruited. The mean reference GFR was 66.98 ± 40.65 ml/min/1.73m², while the estimated GFR based on MDRD and CKD-EPI formula were 62.17 ± 40.40, and 60.44 ± 34.59, respectively. Both MDRD and CKD-EPI were well-correlated with reference GFR (0.806 and 0.867 respectively) and statistically significant with p < 0.001. In the overall cohort, although MDRD had smaller bias than CKD-EPI (4.81 vs. 6.54), CKD-EPI was more precise (25.22 vs. 20.29) with higher accuracy within 30% of measured GFR (79.65 vs. 86.73%).

The CKD-EPI equation appeared to be more precise and accurate than the MDRD equation in estimating GFR in our cohort of multi-ethnic populations in Malaysia.