In the Cockcroft-Gault equation, which factor is applied if the patient is female?

• A. 0.85 multiplier
• B. 1.0 multiplier
• C. 1.15 multiplier
• D. 0.95 multiplier

Answer: (A)

The calculation in Cockcroft-Gault includes a gender adjustment to reflect how creatinine production differs due to muscle mass. For a female patient, a 0.85 multiplier is applied in the standard formula. This reduces the estimated creatinine clearance to account for typically lower muscle mass and hence lower creatinine generation in women. Concretely, CrCl is commonly written as approximately [(140 − age) × weight × 0.85] / [72 × serum creatinine], with age in years, weight in kg, and serum creatinine in mg/dL. Using 0.85 lowers the clearance estimate for females, while using 1.0 would ignore gender differences, and multipliers like 1.15 or 0.95 are not used in this equation.