Facts About Kidney Disease

  1. More than 20 million Americans - one in nine adults - have chronic kidney disease. More than 20 million others are at increased risk. Kidney disease is one of the costliest illnesses in the U.S. today.
  2. More than 378,000 Americans suffer from chronic kidney failure and need an artificial kidney machine to stay alive.
  3. Diabetes is the leading cause of chronic kidney failure; diabetes accounts for approximately 44 percent of new cases of chronic kidney failure in the United States each year.
  4. Uncontrolled or poorly controlled high blood pressure is the second leading cause of chronic kidney failure in the United States; it accounts for about 35 percent of all cases.
  5. More than 50,000 patients are waiting for kidney transplants, but only about 14,000 will receive transplants this year because of a shortage of suitable organ donors.
  6. Benign prostatic hyperplasia (prostate problems) affect 50 percent of men by ages 51 to 60 and more than 90 percent of men over 80.
  7. Currently, some one million Americans are treated each year for kidney stones. The majority of these cases occur in people between 20 and 40 years of age. Kidney stones are more common in men, who account for about four out of five cases.
  8. Kidney and urinary tract diseases continue to be one of the major causes of work-loss among men and women. Each year, over 1 million physician visits and more than 300,000 hospitalizations in the U.S. resulted from kidney stones.
  9. Urinary incontinence, the loss of urine control caused by illness, medications or aging, affects about 13 million Americans. Although effective treatments are available, only about 10 percent of those who suffer from urinary incontinence seek medical care for the problem, often because of embarrassment.
  10. Of the single kidney transplants performed in 2002, 6,554 were from living donors and 6,185 were from non-living donors. In 2002, 12,739 people with kidney disease were given a "Gift of Life" by receiving a transplant.

Since diseases of the kidney and urinary tract remain a major cause of illness and death in the United States, a concerted effort by government, private sector and lay and medical volunteers is needed to ease their devastating toll on society. The National Kidney Foundation and its 51 Affiliates with over 200 chapters nationwide are the major voluntary health organization in the U.S. whose purpose and efforts are directed solely to this end.

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