What everyone should know
Chronic kidney disease includes conditions that damage kidneys and decrease their ability to keep people healthy.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD), also known as chronic renal disease, is a progressive loss in renal function over a period of months or years.
The symptoms of worsening kidney function are unspecific, and might include feeling generally unwell and experiencing a reduced appetite.
Often, chronic kidney disease is diagnosed as a result of screening of people known to be at risk of kidney problems, such as those with high blood pressure or diabetes and those with a blood relative with chronic kidney disease.
Chronic kidney disease may also be identified when it leads to one of its recognized complications, such as cardiovascular disease, anemia or pericarditis.
If kidney disease gets worse, wastes can build to high levels in the blood which may develop complications like high blood pressure, anemia (low blood count), weak bones, poor nutritional health and nerve damage.
Kidney disease increases risk of having heart and blood vessel disease. These problems may happen slowly over a long period of time
Chronic kidney disease may be caused by diabetes, high blood pressure and other disorders. Early detection and treatment can often keep chronic kidney disease from getting worse.
When kidney disease progresses, it may eventually lead to kidney failure, which requires dialysis or a kidney transplant to maintain life.
Kidney Transplants
The first kidney transplants between living patients were undertaken in 1954 in Boston and Paris. The Boston transplantation, performed on December 23, 1954, at Brigham Hospital was performed by Joseph Murray, J. Hartwell Harrison, John Merrill and others.
The procedure was done between identical twins to eliminate any problems of an immune reaction. For this and later work, Dr. Murray received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1990. The recipient died eight years after the transplantation.
However, living donor kidney transplants did not become routine until the development of modern immunosuppressive medications to prevent rejection. In 2001, the number of living donor kidney transplants in the U.S. exceeded for the first time the number of kidney transplants from deceased donors.
Living donor kidney transplantation is one option now available to people with kidney failure waiting for a transplant.
Most people have two kidneys. A living donor kidney transplant involves the removal of one of the two kidneys from a healthy individual who is willing to undergo surgery to donate a kidney. This option is possible because a healthy person can live with only one kidney.
Staggering Statistics
The U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) U.S. Department of Health & Human Services data indicates as of January 28, 2011 93,448 people are registered and awaiting procurement and transplantation of a kidney while undergoing a costly regimen of dialysis treatments of up to three days per week.
The National Kidney Foundation estimates that about 350,000 people in the United States have end-stage renal disease and about 67,000 people die of kidney failure every year.- In the year 2000, nearly 47,000 people in the United States were waiting for a kidney transplant.
- Because of a shortage of donor kidneys, each year only a small percentage of people who need a transplant actually receive a kidney. The wait for a donor kidney can take years.
Since 2000, the number of people in the United States waiting has more than doubled.
According to The U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), currently in the United States as of 2010, there are only 5,456 living donors listed at various ages ...less than 10% of the people who need them.
DIALYSIS
Medicare pays a large portion of the costs for dialysis therapy, up to 80 percent through the ESRD program. For a patient starting dialysis who is not already receiving Medicare, he should contact the Social Security office to apply immediately. Medicare benefits do not start until four months from application date.
We already know the cost savings of having a transplant sooner than later vs. long term dialysis, not to mention lives who could be adding to our nation’s productivity that are otherwise lost after great expense for dialysis while waiting for a transplant each year.
There are two types of dialysis: hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. Hemodialysis is the most common method of dialysis used today.