New Tool Predicts Odds of Kidney Disease

Imagine that your doctor could predict your risk of kidney disease in the next five years with a simple calculation.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore report they have done just that.

“With the risk equations that we’ve developed, physicians should be able to determine with high accuracy who will or won’t develop chronic kidney disease in the next few years — and our analyses suggest that they can maintain that accuracy in a variety of clinical settings globally,” researcher Dr. Josef Coresh said in a university news release. He’s a professor in the department of epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Hopkins.

This new calculation uses a mix of factors that include age, high blood pressure and diabetes to predict if someone is likely to develop chronic kidney disease.

The calculator should help doctors identify patients who are most at risk for kidney disease and would benefit the most from early treatment, they said.

Although chronic kidney disease is a progressive condition, its progression can be slowed or stopped if caught early, the researchers noted.

In the study, Coresh’s team used data on more than 5 million people from 28 countries. Using that data, they developed an equation using known chronic kidney disease risk factors that doctors could use to predict which patients are likely to develop chronic kidney disease.

Analysis of the risk scores predicted by the equations were accurate enough to be used clinically, the researchers said.

The calculator was considered accurate when used with another group of more than 2 million people.

The report was published Nov. 8 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

More information

For more on kidney disease, head to the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.