Underlying Primary Causes of Chronic Renal Failure: A Three-Year Study in Al-Thawra General Hospital, Sana'a, Yemen

Objective: To estimate the underlying primary diseases of chronic renal failure (CRF) among patients attending Al-Thawra General Hospital, Sana'a, and Yemen.Methods: This was a cross-sectional, hospital-based study of 566 patients diagnosed with chronic kidney diseases (CKD). It studied the cases attending Al-Thawra General Hospital over a three‐year period from January 2013 to December 2015.Results: Out of 566 patients, 339 (59.9%) were males. The mean age of the patients at diagnosis of CKD was 39.51 years, most of whom (36.6%) were of the age group of 21–35 years. Hypertension was the most frequent cause (43.2%) of CRF, followed by different infectious diseases such as malaria, schistosomiasis and bacterial infections (19%) and obstructive nephropathy (17.9%). On the other hand, CRF of unknown etiology represented 15.2% of cases. Other causes of CRF diabetic nephropathy (9.7%), effect of antibiotics and analgesics (7.0%), ischemic heart disease (4.8%, polycystic kidney disease (3.5%) and congenital anomalies (3.4%). The least common causes were autoimmune diseases, bleeding, traumatic accidents and chronic diarrhea, being responsible for 2.2%, 1.8%, 0.9% and 0.4% of CRF cases, respectively.Conclusions: The majority of CKD cases in our study were males aged between 21 and 35 years old. In addition, most cases of CKD are due to hypertension, followed by infections and obstructive nephropathy. Application of future prevention and control measures are highly recommended to reduce the burden of CRF in Yemen for early detection and proper management of its underlying primary conditions/diseases.