Kidney Failure

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Introduction

There is a pair of kidneys in the human body. They are situated towards the back of the body under the ribs, just at the level of the waist where one on either side of the body. Each kidney is composed of about one million units which are called nephrons and each nephron consists of two parts: a filter which is called the glomerulus and a tubule leading out from the nephron (Cameron 1999). According to Marshall and Bangert (2008) the kidneys have three major functions. Firstly, the kidneys are excretion of waste from plasma in the blood. The second function is that, they maintain of extracellular fluid volume and composition. Lastly, the kidneys have a role in hormone synthesis.

Renal Failure

The renal failure (kidney failure) is dangerous disorder which can affect the function of the kidneys. Stein (2002) defines the renal failure as a condition in which the kidneys are less able than normal to do their usual function. There are two classes of the kidney failure. The first one is acute renal failure which is abbreviated to (ARF) and the second one is chronic renal failure where can be shortened to (CRF). Gaw et al (2008) identified the differences between them as that the kidneys in acute kidney failure fail over a period of days or hours, while the chronic kidney failure develops over years or months. In addition, the acute renal failure may be reversed which means the normal kidney function could be regained, but the chronic renal failure is irreversible.

Chronic Renal Failure

Chronic renal failure is progressive destruction of kidney tissue by disease which if not treated the patient by dialysis (removal of waste substances from the blood of a patient whose suffer from kidney failure) or ...

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...Churchill Livingstone Elsevier.

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United States of America: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

• (2008) High Blood Pressure and Kidney Disease.

http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/highblood/

Accessed: June 11th 2010

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http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/kdd/

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Available at: University Library/Online Library/Electronic Books

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[Accessed June 13th 2010]

Bibliography

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United States of America: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

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