This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Aging/ Geriatrics  • Renal Diseases  • Renal Diseases, Other  • Alert me on articles by topic

Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2005;293:2992.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Findings from a study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute indicate that serum cystatin C is a stronger predictor of the risk of death and cardiovascular events in the elderly than creatinine, the current standard measure of kidney function (Stevens and Levey. N Engl J Med. 2005;352:2122-2124).

For almost a decade, the researchers measured creatinine and cystatin C in blood samples from 4637 elderly patients and compared them as predictors of death from all causes, death from cardiovascular causes, and incidence of myocardial infarction and stroke. Cystatin C could distinguish individuals at low, medium, and high risk with respect to death from all causes and from cardiovascular causes; high levels were also associated with the risk for newly diagnosed myocardial infarction or stroke. Only participants in the highest 7% of the cohort with respect to creatinine levels had a significantly increased risk of . . . [Full Text of this Article]