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What are the blood tests for Kidney Problems?
(May 27, 2010)
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Blood Test For Kidney Problems
The kidneys are a pair of organs located behind the abdominal cavity in human beings. Their function is essentially to filter out waste products and toxins from the body. These waste products along with some water are passed out of the kidneys into the urinary bladder where they get ready to be expelled from the body. Thus the kidneys are responsible for removing some toxic products from the body and maintaining the health of an individual. The kidneys also assist the re-absorption of some products into the body by passing some water and non waste products back into the bloodstream. This happens particularly when a person has not consumed enough water during the preceding time period. The kidneys also produce some hormones such as calcitriol and rennin.
While the kidneys do perform an important set of functions in the body, it is possible to survive with only one kidney if the other one has failed. It is also possible to survive without any functioning kidneys as long as regular dialysis is performed by passing a person’s blood supply through a machine that filters out the toxins that the kidneys would normally filter out. The best way to diagnose a failure of kidney function is to perform a blood test. This may be used in order to minimize the damage to the body from failing kidney function. It may also be used to prevent any further damage from taking place. A blood sample may be used to analyze the quantity of creatinine. This can be used to test the estimated glomerular filtration rate known as eGFR. Creatinine is a waste product of the normal metabolism process and if it is present in the blood beyond a certain threshold it means that the kidneys are not filtering out this waste product effectively. Other tests could be used to measure the Blood Urea Nitrogen levels known as BUN levels. This can help to understand if the kidneys are effectively filtering out urea, which also is a waste product and a chief component of urine.
There are many possible reasons why the kidneys may fail and a diagnosis of poor kidney function may only be the start of the diagnostic process because testing will be required to determine the underlying cause. If there is a tumor based problem, then a physical examination using imaging and kidney biopsy testing would be required for a complete diagnosis.
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Submitted by M T on May 27, 2010 at 06:15
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