estimated glomerular filtration rate

Overview

Estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is a clinical metric used to approximate the kidney’s filtration capacity, based on serum biomarkers such as creatinine and, in some settings, cystatin C together with demographic variables. It is one of the most widely used indicators of renal function in routine care, particularly for chronic kidney disease (CKD), diabetes-associated kidney disease, acute kidney injury, and kidney transplant follow-up. Because it is an estimate rather than a direct measurement, eGFR is interpreted alongside urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio, serum creatinine, Blood Pressure, and clinical context.

Clinically, eGFR is central to staging kidney disease, monitoring progression, and guiding treatment decisions, including dosing of nephrotoxic or renally cleared drugs such as vancomycin and eligibility criteria in clinical trials. In recent biomedical research, eGFR has also served as a key outcome variable for evaluating renoprotective therapies such as finerenone, renin–angiotensin system blockade, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, and glucocorticoid-based regimens, as well as a stratification variable in studies of kidney transplant recipients and diabetic kidney disease.

Focus of Latest Publications

Recent studies used eGFR primarily as a marker of kidney function stability, decline, or treatment response across nephrology and pharmacology settings. In a multicenter randomized trial of Yi-Shen-Hua-Shi granule added to supportive care for IgA nephropathy, no significant differences in eGFR were observed between groups, indicating that the intervention reduced proteinuria without measurable short-term separation in filtration function. Similarly, a real-world study of telitacicept with or without glucocorticoids in IgA nephropathy reported a slight increase in eGFR in both groups, but without a significant difference, suggesting limited detectable effect on filtration over the study period.

In diabetic kidney disease, eGFR was repeatedly used to characterize baseline risk and treatment response. A study of finerenone in CKD associated with type 2 diabetes examined whether the pre-treatment eGFR trajectory modified renoprotective benefit, emphasizing that prior kidney function decline may influence response. Another study evaluated whether an initial decline in eGFR after renin–angiotensin system blockade, together with Blood Pressure lowering, predicted later worsening of renal function in type 2 diabetes mellitus. A real-world cohort of Hispanic adults with type 2 diabetes extracted eGFR and urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio from electronic medical records to describe renal function parameters alongside glycemic control, including glycated haemoglobin A1c.

eGFR also appeared in studies of drug safety and acute kidney injury. A vancomycin case report described acute kidney injury with serum creatinine elevation and eGFR of 36.1 mL/min coinciding with a toxic trough concentration, illustrating how eGFR is used to quantify renal impairment during nephrotoxic exposure. In contrast, a study of contrast-induced acute kidney injury identified eGFR among the key risk factors in an in-hospital electronic monitoring system, supporting its role in predictive modeling. Another publication on exclusion criteria in phase 3 randomized controlled trials in hematologic malignancies showed that creatinine clearance/eGFR was one of the most common renal thresholds used to exclude patients with renal impairment, underscoring its importance in trial design.

In transplant medicine, eGFR was used to assess graft function over time. A case series of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists in kidney transplant recipients reported that eGFR remained stable and even trended toward improvement, while a machine-learning study in kidney transplant recipients modeled late eGFR using numerical prediction and Monte Carlo simulation. These studies reinforce eGFR as a longitudinal endpoint for graft health and post-transplant metabolic management.

Although many of the provided publication contexts centered on epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in oncology, eGFR remained relevant as a renal safety and eligibility metric in those settings as well. For example, osimertinib and other EGFR-targeted therapies were discussed in lung cancer studies, where renal function monitoring is clinically important for treatment tolerance and supportive care. The distinction between EGFR and eGFR is important: the former is a receptor tyrosine kinase target in cancer biology, whereas the latter is a kidney function metric used across nephrology, oncology, and pharmacotherapy.

Key Publications

• May Yi-Shen-Hua-Shi granule added to supportive care reduces proteinuria in IgA nephropathy: a multicenter randomized controlled trial. (Renal failure, 2026, PMID 42087286): "No significant differences in estimated glomerular filtration rate or adverse event rates were observed between groups."
• May Rational design of 2-substituted thio-7-chloroquinazolin-4(3H)-one derivatives as dual EGFR/VEGFR-2 inhibitors with broad-Spectrum anticancer and apoptotic activities. (Bioorganic chemistry, 2026, PMID 41638089): "A novel series of 2-substituted thio-7-chloroquinazolin-4(3H)-one derivatives was rationally designed, synthesized, and evaluated as dual inhibitors of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2) with potential anticancer activity."
• May Drug repurposing strategy to identify the putative leads against the Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) from the USFDA-approved drug pool: Investigating the utility as an anticancer agent. (Journal of molecular graphics & modelling, 2026, PMID 41643235): "EGFR is a validated drug target in anticancer drug discovery."
• May JIN-A02, a Mutant-Selective Fourth-Generation EGFR Inhibitor, Overcomes C797S-Mediated Resistance and Demonstrates Intracranial Activity in NSCLC. (Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, 2026, PMID 41649868): "Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR TKI) have revolutionized the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with activating EGFR mutations."
• May EGFR and IRE1α pathways are associated with distinct immunomodulatory gene expression profiles in NSCLC cells with acquired resistance to EGFR TKIs. (Archives of biochemistry and biophysics, 2026, PMID 41672191): "Differential dependencies on EGFR downstream pathways were observed among resistant cell lines."
• May TGF-β Inhibitor Potentiates Osimertinib-Induced Anti-Tumor Immunity in Egfr-Mutant Lung Cancer. (Cancer science, 2026, PMID 41757675): "Immunotherapy for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains challenging."
• May Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor/KIT-Linked Proliferative Bias in Normal Breast Lobules from Matched Non-Hispanic Black and White Women Is Rapidly Reversible by Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Inhibition. (The American journal of pathology, 2026, PMID 41763534): "...higher protein in NHBW tissue; in lobule-level models, the group effect (NHBW - NHWW) was EGFR β = 0.055, P = 0.010..."
• May Cost Effectiveness of Osimertinib with Chemotherapy Compared to Osimertinib Monotherapy and First-Generation EGFR-TKIs in Advanced NSCLC in the USA. (Clinical drug investigation, 2026, PMID 41746542): "osimertinib combined with chemotherapy has demonstrated improved efficacy in patients with advanced epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer."
• May Osimertinib after definitive chemoradiotherapy in patients with unresectable stage III EGFR-mutated NSCLC: LAURA China cohort. (Lung cancer (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2026, PMID 41785639): "osimertinib, a third-generation epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-tyrosine kinase inhibitor"
• May Empirical Osimertinib as a Second-Line Treatment Is a Viable Option Following First- and Second-Generation TKI Therapy With Unknown EGFR Status in Treated Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Retrospective Study. (Cancer medicine, 2026, PMID 42032945): "Patients with advanced epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutated adenocarcinoma often receive frontline first- and second-generation EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) treatments in Taiwan."