Stakeholder Opinions: Diabetic Renal Disease

Introduction

Prevalence of diabetic renal disease is on the rise. Current treatment focuses on the management of hypertension and glycemic control, but is unable to address the deterioration of renal function. An unmet need exists for therapies fully reversing disease progression. Early diagnosis can help to prevent the disease progression but lack of early diagnostic markers makes this option rather remote.

Scope

• What are the current definitions, pathophysiological stages and the natural history of progression of diabetic renal disease?
• What are the currently available diagnostic methods, the issues and the unmet needs in diagnosis and early detection of diabetic renal disease?
• What are the available treatment approaches in the early stages of diabetic renal disease, the unmet needs and the future trends?
• What are the treatment options in advanced stages of diabetic renal disease and the changing role of renal dialysis and kidney transplantation?

Highlights

Diabetic nephropathy, which is one of the most serious complications of diabetes, develops in approximately 50% of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus who have had diabetes for 20 years. Although it is less prevalent in type 2 diabetes, clinically significant renal disease still develops in 1520% of type 2 diabetes individuals.

Most diabetic renal disease patients are suffering from type 2 diabetes, and are therefore diagnosed late once the disease has already reached its advanced, irreversible stages. This highlights one of the major issues in diabetic renal disease: the need for early diagnosis and good diagnostic markers and risk scores.

The only available treatment in advanced stages of diabetic renal disease is renal replacement therapy. Dialysis comes at a high cost and significantly reduces the patient's quality of life. Hence, it is clear that the main focus of clinicians is on the prevention of disease progression through stringent glycemic and blood pressure control.

Reasons to Purchase

• Understand current definitions, diagnostic methods and treatment approaches in diabetic renal disease
• Current challenges and future opportunities in diabetic renal disease management
• Differences, advantages and disadvantages of pharmacological and non-pharmacological disease management