World Kidney Day

0:00Professor Austin Stack is encouraging people to earn more about their kidney health. As today marks World Kidney Day, chronic kidney disease affects around 1 in 10 adults in Ireland, and is often described as a silent condition with many people unaware they have it in the early stages, health experts say early testing and awareness of the risk factors can make a huge difference. Professor Stack is a kidney specialist with UL hospitals group, and also with me is Sharon Fitzgerald, a kidney transplant recipient from the Markham Ferguson's on the board of the Irish Kidney Association, and you're both very welcome to the program. And Professor Stack, you might talk to us a bit about the importance of World Kidney Day and how it affects its effectiveness in terms of highlighting kidney health. Good morning to you and your listeners, yes indeed, World Kidney Day, it's a hugely important event, this is its 20th anniversary, and just to put things in perspective for you, in this country, every year between 600 to 700 patients are diagnosed with kidney failure and acquired dialysis, and that's about two adults every day requiring dialysis

1:06or starting on dialysis, and at the moment, we've about 2,600 individuals on dialysis and about 2,800 with a kidney transplant, so clearly those individuals have developed kidney failure, irreversible kidney failure, what we need to focus on is early detection so we can prevent it going forward, and that has been really the kind of big slogan for World Kidney Day, 2026 is really raising the awareness for kidney disease in Ireland, informing people about the risk factors for chronic kidney disease, for example, patients with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, or a family history of kidney disease, that these are individuals who should be screened for kidney disease, there are high risk groups, because we know that early detection is the key to prevention, early detection, as we all know, for any chronic condition can save lives.

2:08Sharon, this is a journey you have been through, you experienced kidney disease and went on to receive a transplant, can you tell us a little bit about your journey and what life was like pre and post transplant, how beneficial getting that transplant has been to your life? So I was diagnosed with kidney disease back in 1998, and again, I didn't know I had kidney disease until my organ had failed and I needed to start on dialysis, so early detection would have been incredible for me, it would have pushed the dialysis journey right down the road, and you know, you would have had much longer time in good health or semi-good health, but I started on dialysis then in 1998, and I was on it for about 18 months, and then I managed to get on the transplant list, and I only spent about three months on the list before I was called for a transplant, and just the excitement of that day was incredible,

3:11you know, and then the transplant worked, and just not to have to do dialysis every day again, it was incredible, it was such a change to my life, you know. Does it feel like you've been given a new lease of life or even a second chance of life? Oh, definitely, you know, I had my transplant back in 2000, so I've had nearly 26 years of no dialysis, and that's just an incredible gift for anybody, and the family that donated the organ to me, I can't thank them enough for that, you know, it was just an incredible gift that anybody could receive. You're now involved with the Arts Kidney Association, but why is that the work of that particular association so important for patients? Well, we're one of, we're a patient-led organisation, so we try to help individual patients, because we know what they're going through, and I think that's a key factor for our organisation, you know.

4:14Just to go back to yourself, Austin, it is, you've highlighted the effectiveness of World Kidney Day, just wondering for people listening, who might not be aware of, you know, warning signs and so on, what are some of the, what are risk factors as well? What are some of the main risk factors people should be aware of, and is Kidney Disease something that can be detected with routine test through GP? Oh, absolutely, detected with, sorry, go ahead, prep up the fact. Sorry, as Sharon said there, you know, dialysis, you know, it can take a toll on individuals, and Kidney Transplantation is transformative, and I think it has been for you. But as you mentioned earlier on, early detection is the key for any chronic condition, like chronic kidney disease, and what people need to understand, and we've been trying to, you know, send out this message for the last, you know, 20 years, that kidney disease, chronic

5:20kidney disease for the majority is silent. In other words, it doesn't cause pain, you may have no symptoms whatsoever until the kidney function is significantly impaired, down to about 20 or 15% of normal. So, as you mentioned, I learned many patients have no symptoms, so that's why we have to screen for a chronic condition that is generally asymptomatic, so we have to target what we call the higher risk groups, and we know those higher risk groups very, very well. So individuals who have unfortunately developed diabetes is a very high risk group because they're at risk of chronic kidney disease from diabetic neuropathy, individuals with high blood pressure, another very common condition, and another common cause of kidney failure. That's eminently treatable, heart disease, and patients with a family history. So these are high risk groups

6:22that you can screen for and detect the disease very, very early, and as opposed to the important things about chronic kidney disease, that we have two simple screening tests in ourselves, there is kidney association, members of the HEC, you know, clinic leadership has been advocating for this, you know, over the last decade. So a simple blood test and a simple ear and test can help us assess your kidney health and help diagnose chronic kidney disease. So a simple blood test can tell us about the percentage of kidney function, and a simple ear and test can tell us if a patient is leaking protein or if there's blood in the urine, which might indicate that the filters in the kidney are not working well. And the benefits of that is that if we diagnose kidney disease early, then we can institute treatments that can protect the kidney function and slow

7:25and delay the progression and hopefully in some cases avoid the need for dialysis altogether and prevent patients from going into kidney failure. We do have to leave it there, but I do really appreciate both of you joining us for a, as you've done, a professor highlighting symptoms, early detection, and treatments, and Sharon Fitzgerald for sharing her story. That's a professor Austin Stack, kidney professor of medicine at UL, kidney specialist, and also with a Sharon Fitzgerald, the kidney transplant recipient from the marketing of Ferguson's on the board of the Irish kidney association.