Question

In 2002, there was a change in the naming of kidney disease as chronic kidney disease with stages. Do you think this has caused more people to be labelled as having disease or has caused improved recognition of disease?

Answer 1

In 2002, the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (KDOQI) published a new chronic kidney disease (CKD) classification based on five categories of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) . For near-normal kidney function, additional signs of kidney damage Normoalbuminuria and Microalbuminuria/macroalbuminuria were required.

Previously, there was no commonly accepted definition of CKD, and serum creatinine values from 120 to 350 µmol/L had been used as cut-off . The new classification was, therefore, nothing else than a paradigm shift in nephrology: the main attention was moved from end-stage CKD to less advanced stages of the disease with the aim to improve early CKD detection. The latter is fundamental to enable preventive measures.