Trends in Chronic Kidney Disease in China

In this letter, the authors report that chronic kidney disease related to diabetes has become increasingly common both in the general population and among hospitalized urban patients in China, a finding that is preceded by decades of increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes. To the Editor: Diabetes is the leading cause of end-stage kidney disease worldwide, though glomerulonephritis has been the more predominant cause in developing countries. 1 We hypothesized that the surging prevalence of diabetes in developing countries may have a substantial effect on the observed spectrum of chronic kidney disease. To evaluate trends in chronic kidney disease related to diabetes or to glomerulonephritis, we used two resources — one that tracks hospitalized persons and another that tracks the general population in China. To track hospitalized persons, we used the Hospital Quality Monitoring System, a mandatory patient-level national database for hospital accreditation, under . . .