Renal and Genitourinary System

This essay focuses on a case study of a patient with edema, no urine output, and bilateral flank pain, discussing the diagnosis and causes of kidney failure.

Running head: RENAL AND GENITOURINARY SYSTEM
RENAL AND GENITOURINARY SYSTEM
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1RENAL AND GENITOURINARY SYSTEM
The essay will focus on the case study of the patient who is 65 years old suffering
from edema, no urine output and bilateral flank pain and has a past medical history of
arthritis, systemic lupus and diabetes mellitus. The patient was presented in the outpatient
office and was medicated with insulin and aspirin. In order to understand the presence of
edema associated with no urine output few test or diagnosis is considered that will allow the
doctors to physically examine and confirm the medical condition of the patient. The test
included are magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), urine analysis, X-rays, blood test and
ultrasound exam. Kidney failure is the condition that occurs when the kidney is unable to
filter any waste from the human body (Ratchford & Evans, 2017).
Different signs and symptom that indicate the presence of kidney failure are low urine
output, swelling in feet, ankles or legs, nausea, confusion, shortness of breath, fatigue,
weakness, seizures and fluid retention. Acute renal failure is also termed as acute kidney
injury that is primarily reversible as compared to chronic kidney failure. It is caused due to
different malfunction activity of the kidney like major surgery, dehydration, injury or excess
blood loss (Brown et al., 2015). Chronic renal failure is also termed as chronic kidney
diseases (CKD) that is primarily caused due to long-term disease like diabetes or high blood
pressure, which slowly effects the activity of kidney and reduces the function of kidney.
Acute renal failure is characterized by the presence of high level of serum creatinine within
the patient body that result in low urine output for approximately 6 hours depending on the
patient’s body weight whereas chronic renal failure is characterized by the occurrence of
damage to the structural kidney or reduced glomerular filtration rate (GFR) that is less than
60 ml/min. Kidney dysfunction is also termed as the end-stage renal disease (ESRD) where
the kidney is unable to perform any function for human survival (Tangri et al., 2016).
The damage to the kidney can either be temporary or permanent depending on the
causes that leads to kidney dysfunction. Diabetes is considered as the most significant cause

2RENAL AND GENITOURINARY SYSTEM
of kidney damage that also includes high blood pressure condition. There are other potential
causes that leads to kidney dysfunction that includes genetic diseases like polycystic kidney
disease, continuous exposure towards environmental pollutant or medication, autoimmune
diseases like IgA nephropathy and lupus, severe dehydration, urinary tract diseases, nephrotic
syndrome, kidney trauma, consumption of illegal drug or drug abuse and heart attack
(Webster et al., 2017). Hence, in this essay a detail explanation was provided on the concept
of kidney failure that can either be acute or chronic in nature. The test that can be used in the
case of patient was highlighted who was suffering from edema. The major difference between
the concept of acute renal failure and chronic renal failure was also explained in the essay
that also incorporated the potential causes that leads to kidney dysfunction (Tan et al., 2016).

3RENAL AND GENITOURINARY SYSTEM
References
Brown, M. A., Collett, G. K., Josland, E. A., Foote, C., Li, Q., & Brennan, F. P. (2015). CKD
in elderly patients managed without dialysis: survival, symptoms, and quality of life.
Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 10(2), 260-268.
Ratchford, E. V., & Evans, N. S. (2017). Approach to lower extremity edema. Current
treatment options in cardiovascular medicine, 19(3), 16.
Tan, H. L., Yap, J. Q., & Qian, Q. (2016). Acute kidney injury: tubular markers and risk for
chronic kidney disease and end-stage kidney failure. Blood purification, 41(1-3), 144-
150.
Tangri, N., Grams, M. E., Levey, A. S., Coresh, J., Appel, L. J., Astor, B. C., ... & Evans, M.
(2016). Multinational assessment of accuracy of equations for predicting risk of
kidney failure: a meta-analysis. Jama, 315(2), 164-174.
Webster, A. C., Nagler, E. V., Morton, R. L., & Masson, P. (2017). Chronic kidney disease.
The Lancet, 389(10075), 1238-1252.