[Preventing chronic kidney disease in France: advantages, feasibility and concerns]

Chronic kidney disease concerns 10 to 14 % of Western populations, and these people are at increased risk of mortality. Treating those patients who reach end-stage renal disease is socially and financially costly and requires considerable medical efforts. While the number of nephrologists per inhabitant in France seems to be preserved over time, the increasing prevalence of end-stage renal disease and improvement in early referral of chronic kidney disease patients results in increased workload for renal physicians. In order to reduce the consequences of chronic kidney disease at both, individual and societal levels, promoting primary prevention (elimination of risk factors), secondary prevention (early management of patients) or tertiary prevention (optimal treatment of functional disabilities related to chronic kidney disease) seems relevant. Some of these actions could narrow the gap between current medical practices and recommendations or prevent new end-stage renal disease cases with an acceptable cost-effectiveness ratio. New approaches might be necessary to better control the disease and overcome current limitations such as resistance to treatments.