General practitioners' serum creatinine recording styles.

Opportunistic screening of serum creatinine records in the database of general practitioners (GPs) could be a very practical and inexpensive way to pinpoint chronic kidney disease. To get an idea of the consistency of such records, we retrospectively analyzed how 8 GPs recorded serum creatinine values for a total number of 11,711 adults over a 36-month period. While more than 1 test per patient was requested on average during the observation period, unfortunately only 27% of the numerical values tested were recorded; in more than 47% of cases, the GP simply recorded that the value was "normal." This style of data recording prevents any effective use of the serum creatinine values, impeding any estimation of the glomerular filtration rate or appreciation of temporal trends.