Leslie Spry: My name is Leslie Spry and I am a kidney specialist in Lincoln, Nebraska. I am here on behalf of the National Kidney Foundation and I am here to talk to you today about understanding kidney disease, and this will introduce you to risk factors associated with chronic kidney disease.

Chronic kidney disease is a silent disease and so in order for us to be able to diagnose kidney disease, we need to identify patients who have risk for chronic kidney disease. There are some 26 million individuals in the United States today who have chronic kidney disease and we suspect that there are at least, equal to that number, who are at risk. Those patients who need to be screened for chronic kidney disease include patients who have a family history of chronic kidney disease, family history of diabetes, family history of high blood pressure, if you have a personal history of high blood pressure or diabetes.

There are certain ethnic minorities who are at very high risk and those include African-Americans. The Hispanic have higher risk for chronic kidney disease and especially that related to diabetes. The American-Indian population has a very high incidence of diabetes and a very high incidence of kidney disease associated with diabetes. Asians an Pacific Islanders both have increased incidence of kidney disease associated with high blood pressure and diabetes and those individuals should be screened.

Finally, there are a number of minor criteria which includes a history of heart disease. Patients who have heart disease are known to have chronic kidney disease with a greater propensity. Individuals over the age of 60, patients who have more than one kidney stones throughout their lifetime are at increased risk for chronic kidney disease, and if you have recurrent stone disease or complex stone disease, those people should be screened. Any one who has frequent urinary tract infection or bladder infections, patients who have certain types of inflammatory disease such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis may have an increased incidence of kidney disease. Patients who take arthritis drugs such as Ibuprofen and Naproxen may have an increased incidence of kidney disease, especially if these medicines are taken on a daily basis or when combined with Acetaminophen. Those drugs can be toxic to the kidney in long-term use.

Next, we are going to discuss the diagnosis of chronic kidney disease. We are going to examine those ways in which we can accurately diagnose and stage chronic kidney disease.