Familiar Renal Disease, Epidemiology and Genetics in Niteroi/Rio de Janeiro

In Brazil, several kidney diseases have unknown etiological diagnosis, among them, hereditary renal diseases. The lack of technical-scientific knowledge and patients' access to the health service hinder the correct diagnosis, so that hundreds of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are unaware of the origin of their kidney problems. The objective of this REGENT study (Renal epidemiology and genetics in Niteroi) is to identify and characterize the cases of possible inheritance of CKD in patients undergoing dialysis or kidney transplant treatment in the metropolitan region II of the state of Rio de Janeiro. In this metropolitan region, based in the city of Niteroi, there are 10 hemodialysis clinics accounting for approximately 1500 - 1800 patients. There is a central Hospital that works as an official reference center for all those CKD patients (Hospital Universitario Antonio Pedro). This hospital belongs to the Universidade Federal Fluminense, an academic research institution, where this project will be executed. There is also a kidney transplant unit working at the Hospital Universitario Antonio Pedro. Interviews, sociodemographic and clinical data collection will be performed in patients with CKD from these centers. The interview contains questions about family CKD: Does any family member undergo hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis? Does any family member do/did conservative treatment for CKD? Has any family member had a kidney transplant? Has any family member died due to chronic kidney disease? In cases of any affirmative answer to one of the above questions, patients will be classified as a "family index case". The cases of familial kidney disease caused by diabetes, and polycystic kidney disease will be excluded. So, the remaining cases will be considered as "index cases" to be more described and characterized. In this way, an affirmative response to the survey will create a group of familial CKD, and it will allow us to identify them as a suspected genetic kidney disease. These patients will be analyzed as a group, and clinical histories and blood tests to genetic renal diseases will also be performed, when possible, depending on the availability. From these identified index cases, we will try to create familiar clinical description of each individual in every family. A new outpatient section is being created at the Hospital Universitario Antonio Pedro to take multidisciplinary care of the relatives and entire families in a special type of family primary care.