Jerry McCauley - Approaches to Chronic Kidney Disease: A Guide for Primary Care Providers and Non-Nephrologists

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Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major public health problem worldwide, affecting alone in the United States nearly one in seven adults. It is a disease process that integrates chronic illness at several levels leading to a progressive condition complicated by several comorbidities including cardiovascular disease. Respectively, the annual mortality rate for patients with CKD is twice that of patients without the disease. The spending cost on the care of patients with CKD including for those who progress to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) requiring dialysis or kidney transplantation is in billions of US dollars, imposing a tremendous economic burden on the health care system.

Early interventions and referral to nephrology will not only improve the quality of life of the individual with the disease, but can also slow the progression to ESRD or delay clinical complications including cardiovascular disease and death. Primary healthcare providers awareness of basic CKD clinical guidelines, ability to predict the progression of the disease, and accurate timing of referral could increase the likelihood of preemptive kidney transplantation and improve the transition to renal replacement therapy including starting hemodialysis with a permanent vascular access rather than a tunneled dialysis catheter if peritoneal dialysis is opt out reducing the associated health care costs.

This textbook provides a comprehensive, current state-of-the-art review of this field and will serve as a valuable resource for non-nephrology clinicians especially in underserved rural areas with limited resources who care for patients with CKD. The book addresses the epidemiology and risk factors for the disease. It also discusses CKD comorbidities and preparation for an inevitable need for renal replacement therapy, including renal transplant.

We would like to thank all our patients, who have been the best mentors to us over all these practicing years. We are especially thankful to all the authors for the contributed time and effort to produce this valuable book. Finally, we would like to thank our families for being supportive through this long process despite all the challenges we have experienced in the COVID -19 pandemic.