CHEARS

Hello to all the sparkling minds out here, I’m HARITHA H (Pharm.D, 5th year) and a new member of this team

My first series of blogs will be on Uremic Toxins and its burden on multiple organ systems.

Have you all come across a dialysis patient, with extreme pruritus, abdominal dysfunction and vomiting episodes during dialysis sessions, well the culprit underneath is uremic toxins.

End stage renal disease (ESRD) is a world public health problem, where the kidney functions are reduced by 10-15% of its normal functioning. Usually at this stage dialysis and kidney transplantation are the only treatment options available for survival. In India, it has been recently estimated that the incidence of ESRD is 299 per million population and >100,000 new patients enter renal replacement programs annually in India. On the other hand, because of scarce resources, only 10% of the Indian ESRD patients receive Renal Replacement Therapy.

With decreasing kidney function, CVD and mineral bone disorders also frequently emerge in CKD , one of the contributing factors for this is the uremic retention solutes that accumulate in the circulation and the tissues. As a consequence progression of kidney dysfunction is paralleled with the development of complications, affecting both quality of life and survival of these patients.

Recently, a huge number of uremic retention solutes have been identified, which can be classifies into three groups such as

• SMALL SOLUTES (Urea, Uric acid, thymine, sorbitol etc)es. 

• MIDDLE MOLECULES (Leptin, Interleukins, Hepcidin, Endothelin etc)

• PROTEIN BOUND UREMIC TOXINS (Indoxyl sulphate, p-cresol, Melatonin etc)

Among these Uremic Toxins, the protein bound compounds are of particular focus as they are behind the complications caused on multiple organ systems.

Be tuned with Post Series

To be continued…