Kidney Care (Nephrology)
Our nephrologists, located throughout the Philadelphia suburbs, will medically manage your kidney conditions and develop a treatment plan based on your specific needs.
Kidney failure occurs when the kidney lose their ability to filter waste from the bloodstream. It can be developed suddenly (acute) or over the long term (chronic).
Many conditions, diseases and medicines can create situations that lead to acute or chronic kidney disease.
Chronic kidney disease is also called chronic renal failure or chronic renal insufficiency.
Chronic kidney disease is caused by damage to the kidneys. In chronic kidney disease the kidneys are no longer able to clean toxins and waste product from the blood and perform their functions to full capacity. The kidneys do not usually fail all at once. Instead, kidney disease progresses slowly over a period of years.
When the disease gets worse and wastes have built up in the blood, you could have kidney failure.
The most common causes of this damage are:
Other things that can lead to chronic kidney disease include:
There are five stages of chronic kidney disease, with stages 4 and 5 leading to kidney failure
Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is the best measure of kidney function. The GFR is the number used to figure out a person's stage of kidney disease. A math formula using the person's age, race, gender and their serum creatinine is used to calculate a GFR. A doctor will order a blood test to measure the serum creatinine level. When kidneys are working well they remove creatinine from the blood. As kidney function slows, blood levels of creatinine rise:
Dialysis or a kidney transplant is needed in order to maintain health at stage 5.
Many kidney conditions are treated by dialysis to remove toxins, mineral buildup and excess fluid from the body when the kidneys have failed.
Our nephrologists, located throughout the Philadelphia suburbs, will medically manage your kidney conditions and develop a treatment plan based on your specific needs.