Many High-Risk Patients Miss Out on Full Kidney Disease Screening, Study Finds

MONDAY, Nov. 24, 2025 (HealthDay News) – High-risk patients often do not receive complete screening for chronic kidney disease, particularly in primary care, according to a study published online Nov. 24 in BMJ Open. Pamela Kushner, from the University of California at Irvine in California, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review of Embase and MEDLINE from Jan. 1, 2018, to Oct. 17, 2023, identifying screening programs in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom among patients with diabetes and/or hypertension and high-risk racial or ethnic groups. Twenty-one studies met inclusion criteria; quality was assessed using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for nonrandomized studies. Across 30,643,162 pooled participants, 6,413,466 (weighted mean, 21 percent) received complete screening (albumin-to-creatinine ratio plus estimated glomerular filtration rate). The weighted mean prevalences of any CKD testing were 33 percent among patients with diabetes and 12 percent among those with hypertension. Among 24,608 Indigenous persons or underserved communities, the weighted mean prevalence of CKD screening was 91 percent. In primary care, any CKD testing had a weighted mean prevalence of 22 percent (n=30,705,837) versus 93 percent in community outreach settings (n=26,640). Follow-up testing was infrequent or not reported in most studies, the authors report. “These findings indicate a low prevalence of CKD screening of high-risk patients, particularly in primary care,” the authors write. Disclosures include personal fees reported by Kushner (Abbott Diabetes, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Janssen, Lilly, Novo Nordisk) and Mende (AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., Janssen, Lilly). Abstract/Full Text.Sign up for our weekly HealthDay newsletter

Many High-Risk Patients Miss Out on Full Kidney Disease Screening, Study Finds

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