Chronic renal failure from the English-speaking Caribbean: 2007 data

Development of the renal registry to include patients at different stages of chronic kidney disease (CKD).

The 2007 renal registry include cases at different stages of CKD based on the current guidelines according to the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) Kidney Disease Outcome Initiative (K/DOQI) staging. There was an increase in the number of participating countries, with the addition of Antigua and Barbuda, St Lucia and Turks and Caicos.

Data were collected using a questionnaire form. Data were stored and analysed in Words Excel for Windows or SPSS 12.0.

Data were available for Antigua and Barbuda (n = 43), British Virgin Islands (n = 69), Cayman Islands (n = 45), Trinidad and Tobago (n = 564), Jamaica (n = 920), Turks and Caicos (n = 64), St Lucia (n = 51) and Bahamas (n = 121). The registry identified hypertension, diabetes mellitus and Chronic Glomerulonephritis (CGN) as the commonest causes of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in these countries. The leading cause of death reported was listed as ischaemic heart disease/heart failure, sepsis and cerebrovascular accident.

The majority of patients with CKD and ESRD had hypertension, diabetes mellitus and CGN as the major causes. Collection of data for patients with CKD at different stages was met with some challenges, and resulted in underestimation of the true number of persons with CKD across these Caribbean countries. More emphasis will continue to be placed on improving data collection so the true incidence, prevalence and healthcare burden of CKD is known in the Caribbean. A web based programme is being developed to improve data collection.