eGFR

This parody (written by Greg Crowther) is sung to the tune of "YMCA" (written by Jacques Morali and Victor Willis and performed by the Village People).

A song written for my wife to sing at her Grand Rounds presentation to the UW Division of Nephrology (May 31, 2019) on surrogate endpoints for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), with an emphasis on estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). The bottom line is that one must be cautious when using surrogate endpoints in place of clinical endpoints, as underscored by the surprising results of the Cardiac Arrythmia Suppression Trial (CAST), which showed that certain arrhythmia-suppressing drugs actually increase mortality.

Doctors: choosing endpoints is hard!
Just remember -- CAST caught us off-guard!
But Lesley Inker says that eGFR
Is an endpoint that is valid!

Doctors: a drop of 40 percent
Is predictive of adverse events!
And this holds up across many treatments,
So we think there’s one main pathway...

CHORUS:
It’s good to calculate eGFR!
It’s good to calculate eGFR:
A surrogate endpoint that you’ll want to compile
When it’s time to design your trial!
It’s good to calculate eGFR!
It’s good to calculate eGFR!
Get your data on time! Write your budget with ease!
No more waiting for end-stage disease!