Health Topic

Kidney Tests

Your kidneys filter and clean your blood. Read about the blood, urine, and imaging tests that doctors use to diagnose and monitor kidney diseases.

Reviewed Reviewed by a registered pharmacistGeneral information

Also called: Kidney Function Panel · Kidney Function Tests · Kidney Panel · Renal Function Panel

Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About Kidney Tests

You have two kidneys. They are fist-sized organs on either side of your backbone above your waist. Your kidneys filter and clean your blood, taking out waste products and making urine. Kidney tests check to see how well your kidneys are working. They include blood, urine, and imaging tests.

Early kidney disease usually does not have signs or symptoms. Testing is the only way to know how your kidneys are doing. It is important for you to get checked for kidney disease if you have the key risk factors - diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, or a family history of kidney failure.

Specific kidney tests include:

  • Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) - one of the most common blood tests to check for chronic kidney disease. It tells how well your kidneys are filtering.
  • Creatinine blood and urine tests - check the levels of creatinine, a waste product that your kidneys remove from your blood
  • Albumin urine test - checks for albumin, a protein that can pass into the urine if the kidneys are damaged
  • Imaging tests, such as an ultrasound - provide pictures of the kidneys. The pictures help the health care provider see the size and shape of the kidneys, and check for anything unusual.
  • Kidney biopsy - a procedure that involves taking a small piece of kidney tissue for examination with a microscope. It checks for the cause of kidney disease and how damaged your kidneys are.

It sits within Kidneys and Urinary System and Diagnostic Tests.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on Kidney Tests

1,274 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Research already completed

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

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Clinical Trials

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Kidney Function Tests. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Kidney Tests, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.