Uremia in diabetics: the prognosis improves.

Chronic uremia caused by diabetic glomerulopathy accounts for about 25 percent of new patients treated by maintenance hemodialysis. At the onset of glucose intolerance, insulin dependent diabetics have larger than normal kidneys, with a markedly increased glomerular filtration rate. During the subsequent 15 to 20 years of insulin use, glomerulosclerosis progresses silently, until a clinically overt nephrotic syndrome becomes evident. Thereafter, the clinical manifestations of nephropathy appear rapidly with an exponential decline in creatinine clearance to less than 5 ml/min within one to five years. Putting together a life plan for a nephrotic and azotemic diabetic involves awareness, and coordinated management of not only renal but extrarenal vasculopathic complications of diabetes, especially proliferative retinopathy. Carefully made preparations for hemodialysis and/or renal transplantation with increase changes for at least a short-term favorable outcome, which can now be anticipated in a growing proportion of patients.