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Last updated: 11/24/2009
As of December 31, 2000, in the United States, over 275,000 people were undergoing regular dialysis treatments to manage their ESRD. Diabetes mellitus is the leading single cause of ESRD. According to the 2002 Annual Data Report of the United States...
Renal Data System (USRDS), 42% of non-Hispanic dialysis patients in the United States have ESRD caused by diabetes. People of Native American and Hispanic descent are at an elevated high risk for both kidney disease and diabetes. ESRD caused by diabetes occurred in 65% of Hispanic dialysis patients. And of those Native Americans who had been on dialysis for one year in 1999, 82% had diabetes.
Hypertension (high blood pressure) is the second leading cause of ESRD in adults, accounting for 25.5% of the patient population, followed by glomerulonephritis (8.4%). African-Americans are more likely to develop hypertension-related ESRD than whites and Hispanics.
Among children and young adults under 20 on dialysis, glomerulonephritis is the leading cause of ESRD (31%), and hereditary, cystic, and congenital diseases account for 37%. Pediatric patients typically spend less time on dialysis than adults; according to the USRDS the average waiting period for a kidney transplant for patients under age 20 is 10 months, compared to the adult wait of approximately two years.
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This narrated collection of artist's images shows the anatomy of the kidney at the gross and microscopic levels. Kidney physiology is also explained which describes how blood is filtered by the kidney to produce urine.
Nurse working in a kidney dialysis unit. (Custom Medical Stock Photo. Reproduced by permission.)
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In medicine, dialysis (from Greek "dialusis", meaning dissolution, "dia", meaning through, and "lusis", meaning loosening) is primarily used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney function (renal replacement therapy) due to renal failure. Dialysis may be used for very sick patients who have suddenly but temporarily, lost their kidney function (acute renal failure) or for quite stable patients who have permanently lost their kidney function (stage 5 chronic kidney disease). When healthy, the kidneys maintain the body's internal equilibrium of water and minerals (sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sulfate) and the kidneys remove from the blood the daily metabolic load of fixed hydrogen ions. The kidneys also function as a part of the endocrine system producing erythropoietin and 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol (calcitriol). Dialysis is an imperfect treatment to replace kidney function because it does not correct the endocrine functions of the kidney. Dialysis treatments replace some of these functions through diffusion (waste removal) and ultrafiltration (fluid removal).
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The estimated number of hospital admissions among adults aged 20 or older with “calculus of kidney and ureters” as a primary diagnosis was of 171,000 hospital stays in 2000.
From: NKUDIC
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