Kidney Diseases: Facts, Stats and Trends In India
Kidney Diseases – Introduction
The Chronic Kidney Disease affects around 10% of the world’s population. The kidneys are a pair of organs that lie on either side of the spine in the lower middle part of the back. Each kidney contains around one million filtering units called nephrons. Removal of waste products and excess water from the blood is the most important function of the kidney in the human body.
Kidney is one of the most important organ in the body, Image Credits: Commons wikimedia
The kidneys process 200 litres of blood every day and produce two litres of urine. The waste products are generated from normal metabolic processes including the breakdown of active tissues and ingested foods. The kidneys allow consumption of a variety of foods, vitamins and supplements, additives, and excess fluids without worrying about toxic by-products building up. Regulating levels of various vitamins and minerals such as calcium, sodium, and potassium in the blood is also done by the kidney.
Kidney Diseases in India
The number of new patients diagnosed with End Stage Kidney Disease is over 100,000 per year. There’s a lot of burden relating to kidney disease in India, given the inequality in access to health care due to disparities in wealth and literacy.
Causes in India
Hypertension can cause chronic kidney disease, Image Credits: Pixabay
Diabetes and Hypertension are two major reasons causing kidney related diseases in India. Urinary tract infections that lead to infection and scarring of the kidneys and autoimmune diseases, are also a few conditions that affect the kidneys especially in women. Early detection and treatment of these conditions are essential for good outcomes. In some cases, chronic kidney disease can negatively impact a woman’s fertility and the medication used to treat certain kidney diseases can have a similar effect. For women of child-bearing age, medications must be carefully selected. Access to preconception primary care to detect baseline problems in the kidney, and access to good prenatal and antenatal care is essential.
Facts, Statistics and Trends
The incidence of kidney failure also known as chronic kidney disease has doubled in the last 15 years.
Currently over 1 million people worldwide are alive on dialysis or with a functioning graft.
Diabetes is much more common in Asia in comparison with the white population and is an important reason for kidney failure.
Hypertension is also a major cause of kidney failure and it too has seen a global increase in its incidence.
This lifestyle related disorder is also more prone to affect the Asians when compared to the other western countries.
Hypertension or diabetes account to around 66% kidney failures.
In India, there are approximately 7.85 million people suffering from some kidney related disease.
An estimate of around 15 to 30 million people are diagnosed with chronic kidney disease or evidence of any other kidney disease in the USA.
Caption: Global map showing severity of kidney diseases, Image Credits: Wikipedia
In India, due to extreme poverty and low literacy rate, 90% of the affected people do not get treated for their problem.
Kidney shortage can be considered to be a global phenomenon especially in Asian countries. Most people do not get a donor or wait for years.
An estimate of 735,000 deaths can be associated with the various kidney related issues the main cause being chronic kidney disease.
The prevalence of end-stage renal disease requiring transplantation in India is estimated to be between 151 and 232 per million population.
This means, in average, around 220,000 people require kidney transplantation in India.
Currently, an approximate of 7500 kidney transplantations are performed at 250 kidney transplant centres across the nation.
From this, 90% come from living donors and 10% from deceased donors.
The key to the success of treating this disease is early identification, followed by maintenance of potential donors in the intensive care units.
Most donations take place in private hospitals with few public hospitals participating too.