Chronic Kidney Diseases

Among the population in our country chronic kidney disease (HBZ) there is none the prevalence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, of malignant diseases or that of diabetes mellitus.

Both the general population and the majority of the medical community still live with the hopelessly outdated notion that chronic kidney disease is quite rare.

Of course, the health administration is no exception. According to the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, diseases of the genitourinary system were only 1.1% of the causes of death in 2005 (1).

According to NSI data, in the following year 2006, they were even rarer – 1,05% (2). This is the official version of the frequency of chronic kidney diseases in Bulgaria, on the basis of which nephrological care is planned in the country.

According to the modern classification chronic kidney disease is: “Decreased glomerular filtration rate (GFR) below 60 ml/min/1.73 m2 and/or presence of microalbuminuria or albuminuria” (3).

In Bulgaria, this classification of chronic kidney diseases was officially adopted 3 years ago with the Official Bulletin of the Ministry of Health No. 10/2004 (4).

In such a formulation, the incidence of chronic kidney disease in different countries is usually from 9-10% to over 15% (5, 6). Almost everywhere there is an alarming trend of increasing HCV.
The study was conducted in the period January-May 2007 in 6 regions of the country - Sofia, Plovdiv, Pazardzhik, Smolyan, Pleven and Varna. The planned number of respondents was 2,000 people.