Lifetime Risk of Developing Kidney Failure

Main Digest

The kidneys are bean-shaped organs, each about the size of a fist. They are located near the middle of the back, just below the rib cage, one on each side of the spine. The kidneys are sophisticated reprocessing machines. Every day, a person's kidneys process about 200 quarts of blood to sift out about 2 quarts of waste products and extra water. The wastes and extra water become urine, which flows to the bladder through tubes called ureters. The bladder stores urine until releasing it through urination.

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What's your lifetime risk of developing kidney failure?

New study reveals the answer for middle-aged adults...

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Highlights

• Approximately 1 in 40 men and 1 in 60 women of middle age will develop kidney failure if they live into their 90s.
• People with reduced kidney function face an even higher risk.
• Kidney failure is on the rise and currently afflicts 2 million people worldwide.
• How likely are middle-aged adults to develop kidney failure during their lifetime?

A study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN) provides some insights, which may be used to help set priorities related to kidney care and to increase public interest in the prevention of kidney disease.

Kidney failure takes a significant toll on both individuals and the public as a whole, causing poor health in patients and generating considerable health care costs. Despite kidney failure's impact, researchers don't have a good estimate of people's likelihood of developing it over their lifetime.

To find out, from 1997 to 2008 Tanvir Chowdhury Turin, MD, PhD, Brenda Hemmelgarn, MD, PhD (University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada), and their colleagues studied 2,895,521 adult Alberta residents who were free of kidney failure at the start of the study.

"Given the high morbidity and cost associated with kidney failure, we wanted to quantify the burden of disease for kidney failure in an easily understandable index to communicate information for patients, health practitioners, and policy makers," said Dr. Turin.

Among the Major Findings

• Approximately 1 in 40 men and 1 in 60 women of middle age will develop kidney failure if they live into their 90s. This equates to a 2.66% risk of kidney failure for men and a 1.76% risk for women.
• The risk is higher in people with reduced kidney function (men: 7.51% and women: 3.21%) compared with people with relatively preserved kidney function (men: 1.01% and women: 0.63%).
• The lifetime risk of kidney failure is consistently higher for men at all ages and kidney function levels, compared with women.

The authors note that the actual current life expectancy is approximately 80 years, which changes the risks somewhat.

"The observed probabilities indicate that, if the current estimates remains unchanged, approximately 1 in 93 (or approximately 1%) of men and 1 in 133 (or 0.8%) of women of middle age might develop kidney failure in their lifetime in Alberta, Canada," said Dr. Hemmelgarn.

Study Authors

Study co-authors include Marcello Tonelli, MD, (University of Alberta, in Alberta, Canada); Braden Manns, MD, Sofia Ahmed, MD, Matthew James, MD, PhD, and Pietro Ravani, MD, PhD (University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada). The authors reported no financial disclosures. The article, entitled "Lifetime Risk of End-Stage Renal Disease ," appears online, doi: 10.1681/ASN.2012020164.

Attribution/Source(s):

This quality-reviewed article relating to our Kidney Cancer section was selected for publishing by the editors of Disabled World due to its likely interest to our disability community readers. Though the content may have been edited for style, clarity, or length, the article "Lifetime Risk of Developing Kidney Failure" was originally written by American Society of Nephrology, and published by Disabled-World.com on 2012-08-18 (Updated: 2022-02-18). Should you require further information or clarification, American Society of Nephrology can be contacted at asn-online.org. Disabled World makes no warranties or representations in connection therewith.

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