World Kidney Day - March 14, was marked by the Association "Together for a New Life" with a press conference and the promotion of a new brochure for patients suffering from chronic kidney failure.

The nephrologists of the Military Medical Academy participated in creating the brochure and at the event itself - the Head of the Clinic for Nephrology of the MMA, Colonel Assoc. Dr. Neven Vavić and Dr. Jelena Tadić.

Every tenth person in the world suffers from chronic kidney disease, and because the diagnosis is made later due to the lack of symptoms compared to the stages of the disease, the event was dedicated to prevention and primary health care. Later detection of the disease development can lead not only to high treatment costs, but also to a much worse quality of life for sufferers, and according to the latest estimates, about 700 thousand patients in Serbia live with this chronic disease.

As stated by Dr. Vavić, it is a disease that is reaching epidemic proportions because an increasing number of elderly people have high blood pressure and diabetes, which are risk factors that damage the kidneys:

"Recently, the diagnosis of kidney diseases has been better, so this is also the reason for the increasing number of patients being diagnosed." However, a big problem is a fact that the disease does not produce symptoms, even sometimes until the pre-terminal stage, which is why we have a large number of people who do not know they have the disease and therefore are not controlled or treated. The latest figures show that we had three million deaths from kidney disease in 2019. On the other hand, patients with damage to the function and structure of the kidneys have a high frequency and mortality from cardiovascular diseases, so a large number of kidney patients will not even live long enough for dialysis or transplantation. It is this link between the heart and the kidneys, a specific clinical entity in which impaired cardiac function leads to a decline in kidney function or vice versa. We have to underline that the prevention of kidney disease is the most important, including regular blood and urine tests and hygienic and dietary measures. In the terminal stage of kidney damage, it is important to maintain a good standard of dialysis treatment and, of course, to continuously raise awareness about the importance of kidney donation and transplantation" - emphasized Dr. Neven Vavić, head of the Clinic for Nephrology of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

As chronic kidney disease is diagnosed in the late stages, for the majority of patients the only treatment options are dialysis and kidney transplantation. Transplantation requires a suitable donor, complex surgery, and life-long immunosuppressive therapy. Precisely for these reasons, as well as the fact that expert forecasts indicate that by 2040 kidney disease will be the fifth leading cause of death in the world, this year's World Kidney Day is marked by emphasizing the prevention of kidney diseases and spreading awareness about this serious health problem, which often has no symptoms.

World Kidney Day has been celebrated since 2006 thanks to the initiative of the International Society of Nephrology and the International Kidney Foundation Association in more than 100 countries around the world.

The association "Together for a new Life", together with the most eminent doctors, to prevent and make it easier for patients to cope with this disease, created a brochure so that as many patients as possible could get it.

You can download the electronic version of the brochure here.