New article on chronic kidney disease screening in high-risk populations

April 24, 2025

Scientific-Tools.Org is proud to contribute to the just published open access manuscript “Point-of-Care Testing and Integrated Digital Health Technology for Chronic Kidney Disease Screening in High-Risk Populations of India“.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a silent epidemic—often undetected until its later stages. This burden is especially severe in low- and middle-income countries, where access to early screening and specialist care is limited.

India is home to 128.0 million people with CKD, which makes it the country with the highest absolute number of CKD cases in the world, followed by China and the United States (118.4 million and 38.7 million, respectively).

Our study examines the feasibility of using  point-of-care testing (POCT) combined with integrated digital health technology for CKD screening in high-risk populations in India. Our analysis has three major objectives: (1) to estimate the prevalence of CKD, (2) to evaluate which proportion of persons with existing CKD was unaware of the disease, and (3) to characterize patterns of CKD in subgroups of patients with different comorbidities. The screening includes both an urban population with NCDs that represent major risk factors for CKD development, and a rural population living in CKDu hotspot areas.

We found a nearly 60% CKD prevalence in high-risk populations followed up in PHCs in urban settings and rural hotspot CKDu areas. One of our most striking findings was the extremely low awareness about existing disease. We found that in city primary health centers (PHC), where almost all patients had at least one risk factor for kidney disease development, only 1.4% (i.e. less than one in fifty persons!) were aware of existing CKD. Although higher awareness about existing kidney disease as 16.5% was reported in CKDu hotspot areas, these numbers still indicate ignorance of a diagnosis in almost four out of five patients with CKD.

We advocate for the wider implementation of CKD screening in high-risk groups and timely referral to pre-dialysis nephrology care that is proven to be cost-effective and to reduce the rates of complications. Use of the proposed point-of-care testing and digital health technology could extend CKD screening and improve patients’ clinical management.

This work provides a new vision on the CKD epidemiology evaluation in highly demanded areas. The presented results open the door of opportunities for implementation of CKD screening programs in many countries and draw attention of health policy makers. Building on this momentum, Scientific-Tools.Org is committed to empowering research teams and health organizations with tools and services that enhance research productivity and support the dissemination of scientific knowledge.