LAHORE: The newly-established Pakistan Renal Registry (PRR) has become operational all over the country.

The registry is meant to collect analyses and reports on data from renal centres (public and private).

Health professionals say it is a landmark development in research and the country has become fully dependent on its own health professionals and resources to create a mega database on the kidney diseases and the patients.

Pakistan Society of Nephrology President Prof Dr Waqar Ahmad spoke about the development at the 12th biennial conference of the Society at a local hotel on Friday.

Speaking to Dawn, he claimed that Pakistan was lagging behind in research on the impact of kidney diseases and data registry and had to depend upon international health organisations.

“For any service to flourish, a mandatory attribute is self-audit and reflection and such attributes stem from data collected and analysed with the aim of self-correction and self-improvement,” he said.

He said the PSN had been vigorously working to develop a comprehensive clinical database of renal patients in the country since its inception in 1995. The project had started under the leadership of Prof Syed Jaffar Naqvi who worked tirelessly to make it a reality.

“The PSN has been able to take his mission further with all these efforts bearing fruit with the launch of the online Registry. The data covers information from varied spectrum of patients ranging from chronic kidney disease stage 1 to patients on renal replacement therapy,” he said.

“Through such databases we as renal healthcare providers can identify our strengths and weaknesses and determine where more effort is required,” Prof Waqar said. Furthermore, he said, this data could help identify any loopholes in the provision of healthcare to our patients.

A major part of the work on renal specialty is the management of patients with acute kidney injury and advanced chronic kidney disease. This may involve renal replacement therapy by dialysis or by kidney transplant.

“In a country like Pakistan, kidney disease has emerged as a plague which requires tremendous efforts through highly devoted professionals to fight back,” said the PSN president.

About the disease, he said, there had been a globally increased inflow of renal patients along with tremendous rise in the awareness of renal disease.

“The Society has always been a spearhead in the progress and prosperity of nephrology by providing a perfect platform to all the doctors, professors and researchers to approach and deliver all the attendees about the latest advancements in the respective sphere.

“Many more new developments in the renal medicine required interactive sessions at local and global level to properly implement them,” he said.

There were a lot of difficulties the nephrologists faced in the field since it emerged in Pakistan as a separate specialty. Initially, he said, general physicians and urologists had been treating the patients that came in the domain of nephrology. Later, it emerged as a separate field since there was so much to do for the patients with acute kidney injury, chronic kidney disease, end-stage renal disease and renal replacement therapy that was actually being ignored.

The main hurdles had been financial and administrative barriers of our country, said Prof Waqar.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2019