A Chula research team has developed a screening strip kit to detect the early stage of chronic kidney disease (CKD) that’s easy to use, yields quick results, increasing the chance of being cured for patients, and helping to cut over 10 billion baht of the ever-increasing annual healthcare costs for CKD patients. The CKD screening strip kits are expected to be released early next year.
CKD poses as a silent threat that chips away at the patients’ quality of life. Each year, 17 percent of the Thai population, or eight million people are diagnosed with kidney disease, most of whom are asymptomatic. So, they do not seek medical attention and carry on with their damaging behavior to worsen the kidneys’ poor condition.
“By the time the body shows the typical symptoms of CKD, like fatigue, lack of energy, and swelling, the patient would have already entered the acute stage, in which only 30 percent of the kidneys are functioning. Therefore, the disease must be detected at the early stage to slow down the degeneration of the kidneys, and to give the patient a better chance to be cured,” Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nattachai Srisawat, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, explained the possibility of reducing the number of CKD patients in Thailand. thai university scholarship
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nattachai, at present, the National Health Security Office (NHSO) has spent around 10 billion baht to enable patients to undergo both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. This budget is expected to increase by 500 million baht annually because of the steady increase in the number of kidney disease patients. (Each person has an average cost of 200,000 baht/year). If no measures are taken to stop this upward trend of CKD, there will be shortages of the budget and medical treatment.
With research funding from the Health Systems Research Institute (HSRI), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nattachai, in collaboration with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kittinan Komolpis, the Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, developed an “innovative self-screening strip kit for an early stage of CKD,” so patients can perform the test by themselves.
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