A study of chronic kidney disease patients with no known risk factors coming to tertiary care hospital

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) has become a major cause of morbidity and. in some parts of the world CKD incidence has increased regardless of hypertension, diabetes mellitus or metabolic syndrome. This study was done to identify the unknown factors which can be contributing to the increased incidence of CKD.Methods: It was a case control study. There were 61 cases and 50 controls. A detailed history regarding residence, occupation, addiction, drug intake, family history, diet and environmental factors was taken. The data was analysed to identify a common factor amongst the CKD patients who did not have history of any known risk factors of CKD.Results: Age of onset of CKD in 48% of cases was <40 years. Much higher percentage of cases gave family history of CKD (10%), history of consumption of NSAIDs (20%) and smoking for >5 years (30%) as compared to controls. Much more cases as compared to controls gave history of mixed diet (46% vs 26%). Much higher proportion of cases had history of heat exposure, excessive heating and sugarcane exposure (72%, 70% and 48% respectively) as compared to controls.Conclusions: This study supports the association of sugarcane exposure, heat exposure and excessive sweating with CKD and reports a changing trend of renal involvement starting at an earlier age. It highlights need of study with sufficient sample size and greater emphasis on family history, smoking, extent of heat exposure and sugarcane exposure to help identifying area of further research and guide policy making