Nephropathy

Nephropathy
Classification and external resources
Specialty	urology
ICD-10	N00- N29
MeSH	D007674
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Kidney disease, also known as nephropathy or renal disease, is damage to or disease of a kidney. Nephritis is inflammatory kidney disease. Nephrosis is noninflammatory nephropathy. Kidney disease usually causes kidney failure (renal failure) to more or less degree, with the amount depending on the type of disease. In precise usage, disease denotes the structural and etiologic disease entity whereas failure denotes the dysfunction (lack of working well, that is, impaired renal function); but in common usage these meanings overlap; for example, the terms chronic kidney disease and chronic renal failure are usually considered synonymous. Acute kidney disease has often been called acute renal failure, although nephrologists now often tend to call it acute kidney injury. About 1 in 8 Americans suffer from chronic kidney disease.

Causes of kidney disease include deposition of the IgA antibodies in the glomerulus, administration of analgesics, xanthine oxidase deficiency, toxicity of chemotherapy agents, and long-term exposure to lead or its salts. Chronic conditions that can produce nephropathy include systemic lupus erythematosus, diabetes mellitus and high blood pressure (hypertension), which lead to diabetic nephropathy and hypertensive nephropathy, respectively.

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