Epidemic of chronic kidney disease in India -what can be done?

The exact prevalence of chronic kidney disease in India is not clear in the absence of regular national registry data and provided only by small observational series or rely on reports from personal experience, but the quality of data is quiet uneven. There are only three population based studies in India commenting on the magnitude of chronic kidney disease. In a prevention program started at community level in Chennai, the reported prevalence is 0.86% in the project population and 1.39% in the control region. The second study is based on Delhi involving 4972 urban patients. The prevalence of chronic renal failure (defined as serum creatinine more than 1.8 mg/dL) to be 0.79 % or 7852 per million/population. The third study perhaps the only longitudinal study to identify the incidence of end stage renal disease is based on 572,029 subjects residing in city of Bhopal suggests that the average crude and age adjusted incidence rates of end stage renal disease were 151 and 232 per million population respectively. The resources and skill for taking care of this large case load, both in terms of personal and health care infrastructure do not exist currently and would need to be created. To tackle the problem of limited access to renal replacement therapy, an important method would be to try and reduce the incidence of end stage renal disease and the need of renal replacement therapy by preventive measures. It is clear that treatment of chronic kidney disease and its advanced stage end stage renal disease is expensive and beyond the reach of average Indian. Thus it is crucial that prevention of chronic kidney disease has to be the goal of medical fraternity, government of India and the general public. This article suggests a series of primary, secondary and tertiary preventive measures for prevention of chronic kidney disease. Clearly there are already many effective and attractive interventions for the treatment and prevention of chronic kidney disease exist and many more surely be developed.