Doubt cast on CKD addition to QOF

A study has cast doubt on the validity of a major addition to the new QOF on the diagnosis of chronic kidney disease.

The revised QOF expects GPs to draw up registers of CKD using estimated glomerular filtration rate ­ but researchers have questioned the accuracy of eGFR calculations.

Their study, published early online by Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, found eGFR seemed to overestimate prevalence of CKD in women. Prevalence in elderly women was two- to four-fold higher than in men of the same age ­ an excess not explained by conventional cardiovascular risk factors.

The study came as experts in another journal expressed strong reservations over eGFR.

Dr Allan Deacon, author of a letter to Annals of Clinical Biochemistry, told Pulse: 'I don't think it should be used at all in routine practice.' Dr Deacon, head of the clinical biochemistry department at Bedford Hospital, added: 'If used it should be in high-risk patients but bearing in mind the limitations.'