Comparison of the prevalence of chronic kidney disease in patients at a university hospital general medicine department and in a community population

Abstract

[Introduction] Despite the unmet need for management of chronic kidney disease (CKD), the prevalence of CKD among patients visiting a university hospital general medicine department (UHGMD) is unknown. Thus, we performed a study to evaluate the prevalence of CKD in UHGMD patients. [Methods] The participants were patients who visited the Department of General Medicine and Emergency Care at the Toho University Omori Medical Center from 2018 to 2021 as a surrogate of the “UHGMD population” and public data of health checkups in the Metropolitan Southern Region as a surrogate of the “community population.” We also compared our data and previously reported data. [Results] The data of 8,545 and 117,971 participants were evaluated as UHGMD and community populations, respectively. The comparison between UHGMD and the community population revealed that the prevalence of CKD in UHGMD patients (15.2%) was 1.4 times that in the community population (10.6%). The prevalence of CKD in UHGMD patients in this study was intermediate between the prevalence in patients managed by nephrologists (20.6%) and in the community population (4.2-16.2%). [Conclusions] The prevalence of CKD in UHGMD patients may reflect the hospital population before nephrologists are involved.