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Gazzetta Medica Italiana Archivio per le Scienze Mediche 2004 October;163(5):173-9

Copyright © 2004 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Kidney disease and early detection

Camici M.

Department of Internal Medicine, University of Pisa, Pisa

Adverse out­comes of chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease, in­clud­ing ­loss of kid­ney func­tion and de­vel­op­ment of re­nal fail­ure and car­di­o­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, can of­ten be pre­vent­ed or de­layed ­through ear­ly de­tec­tion and treat­ment. Recent clin­i­cal prac­tice guide­lines of the American National Kidney Foundation are an­a­lyzed ­about ear­ly iden­tifi­ca­tion of pa­tients ­with kid­ney dis­ease, es­pe­cial­ly for ­risk fac­tors and eval­u­a­tion of la­bor­a­to­ry meas­ure­ments for clin­i­cal as­sess­ment. Primary ­care phy­si­cians ­need to get ­more in­volved in de­tect­ing kid­ney dis­ease in its ear­ly stag­es ­such as in the pre­clin­i­cal ­stage ­called “at in­creased ­risk” and in ­stage 1. Each pa­tient ­with kid­ney dis­ease ­should ­have a clin­i­cal ­plan of ac­tion ­based on the ­stage of dis­ease. All pa­tients and per­sons at in­creased ­risk for kid­ney dis­ease ­should under­go meas­ure­ment and as­sess­ment for quan­ti­ta­tive pro­tei­nu­ria (as a mark­er of kid­ney dam­age) and glo­mer­u­lar fil­tra­tion ­rate es­ti­mat­ed by pre­dic­tion equa­tions (as lev­el of re­nal func­tion).