The Ministry of Health will finance a new drug for the treatment of chronic kidney disease

This Wednesday, the Ministry of Health approved funding for the drug empaglifozin, which reduces the risk of progression of chronic kidney disease.

Patients with chronic kidney disease will be able to access new treatment financed public health system. The Ministry of Health approved funding this Wednesday empaglifozine which reduces the risk of pathology progression, hospitalization and even delayed dialysis from three to 13 years.

He new medicine will be sold from this Wednesday in Spain and will benefit six million peoplepotential cases, as two out of every three remain undiagnosed as it is a “silent disease” that is asymptomatic in the initial stages.

At a press conference the President head of nephrology service from the Clinical University Hospital of Valencia, José Luis Gorris, explained that treatment with empaglifosin, a molecule that has until now been available to patients with type 2 diabetes, can now be given to people with chronic kidney disease without diabetes, once it is proven to significantly improve their clinical situation.

“In Spain there is twice as many people with chronic diseases than the unemployed,” emphasized this expert, who paid special attention to early diagnosis, since it is a pathology “that affects every seventh person, 15% of the population, and will be the first cause of death until the end of the century.”

In Spain, treatment of the most advanced stages of chronic kidney disease accounts for 3% of public health expenditure and 4% of hospital care.

Most cases of chronic kidney disease are diagnosed in emergency departments.

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Gorris insisted early detection to reduce the risk of worsening or failure of kidney function and hospitalization, and regretted that in most cases today are identified urgently.

For her part, the head of the department of family and community medicine, Flora Lopez, explained that to diagnose the disease in primary care, it is necessary to carry out a blood test that checks the efficiency with which the kidneys filter the blood, and another urine test. which measures the presence of albumin and creatinine.

This primary health care expert suggested screening for this chronic disease would be targeted mainly at the diabetic population and people over 65 years of age, since actual function is lost with age and an estimated 33% of people This age group suffers from it.

Another group to be held screening tests These will be hypertensive patients and patients with cardiovascular diseases. According to this specialist, there is a very close connection between the heart and the kidneys, “and when one of these organs becomes ill, the other becomes ill with a delay of less than two years.”

Fortunately, 80% of patients with chronic kidney disease “are in the early stages and are seen in primary care, so there is an opportunity to provide treatment before the disease progresses.”

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