Causes of Kidney Disease

Kidney disease has acquired a status epidemic in the new era. The number of kidney patients is increasing exponentially, not only in India but also in world.

Causes of kidney may be various and finding a cause for kidney disease  is very important. It’s imperative to know the cause of the kidney disease for root causes analysis and for preventing the further progression of the disease. But unfortunately in some cases, despite all efforts, the exact cause of the disease cannot be known.

Primarly, causes for kidney disease can be classified in two categories that need medical interventions for treatment renal disease and other type needs surgical interventions for treatment.

Kidney Disease – Medical & Surgical :

• Medical Renal Disease includes acute kidney injury, nephrotic syndrome etc. Kidney diseases needing surgical intervention includes kidney stone disease, prostate problems, congenital urinary abnormalities and cancer. Medical renal diseases constitute majority of the renal disease burden.
• Acute kidney injury can be defined as the rapid detoriation of kidney function over hour to days. The important causes of acute kidney injury includes infection, diarrhoea ,vomiting, hypertension & some drugs with major medical treatment .Majority of the acute kidney disease conditions can be treated effectively.
• Chronic kidney disease .These are disease which occur over months to years. They are slow progressing and usually donot recover completely. These kinds of patients land into end stage renal disease and require either Dialysis or Renal Transplantation. Chronic kidney disease constitutes up to 75% patients suffering from kidney disease.

Other causes of Kidney Disease:

• Other important causes of Kidney Disease include chronic glomeruloneptritis, chronic interstitial neptiritis, polysystic kidney disease , cancer or use of pain killers, to list a few.
• Urinary tract infection is another cause of kidney disease specially in females and older males.Simple investigations and use of antibiotics for 3-5 days can cure the disease.
• Nephrotic syndrome is a disease characterized by loss protein in urine reading to generalized edema  facial swelling and decrease in urine output. It usually happens in children.
• Among surgical case the most important is kidney stone. It leads to pain in abdomen burning micturition and sometimes blood in urine. Depending upon age, size and site of stone, it can be managed by either medicine or surgery. Benign prostate is usually found in older males and can be treated with drugs but few may require surgical intervention.