Screening to predict development of kidney disease underutilized, doctors say
, 2022-06-24 03:15:06,
Researchers are finding better ways to predict chronic kidney disease in an effort to treat it before dialysis becomes necessary. Photo by Mishu57/Wikimedia Commong
WASHINGTON, June 24 (UPI) — Chronic kidney disease is common, but complicated to treat because most people have no symptoms in its early stages. So detection as soon as possible is key to finding treatment that prevents kidney failure and reduces the need for a transplant or dialysis, experts say.
And, ultimately, finding better ways to predict whether a person will become ill could help introduce lifestyle changes to prevent chronic kidney disease — which affects roughly 38 million adults in the United States — in some individuals.
The numbers are startling: Fully one-third of the U.S. population is at increased risk of chronic kidney disease because of conditions including diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, obesity, a family history of the illness or because they are elderly, experts said.
Each year about 120,000 Americans begin kidney dialysis.
Against this daunting backdrop, clinicians in the field worry that making headway likely will be challenging despite advances in creating sophisticated tools to predict what Dr. Steven Coca, a nephrologist and professor of medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York calls “an ignored disease.”
“It’s always been such an ignored disease … and it affects so many people,” Coca said in a phone interview with UPI. “There’s been inertia around kidney disease in physicians recognizing it, patients being aware … and there’s late referral to nephrologists even in late-stage kidney disease.”
Even simple, inexpensive screening tools for chronic kidney disease are vastly…
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