Chronic renal failure (CRF) refers to a clinical syndrome consisting of a series of symptoms and metabolic disorders in which various kidney diseases cause progressive irreversible renal function decline until loss of kindey function.According to GFR (Glomerular filtration rate), chronic kidney disease can be divided into 5 stages. Once CKD patients progress to 5th stage, end-stage renal disease (ESRD), commonly known as uremia, must be conducted transplantation or blood purification treatment. Due to the high cost of kidney transplantation, most patients are treated with dialysis. Hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis are the most commonly blood purification techniques and are widely used in end-stage renal disease.

The number of patients with end-stage renal disease continues to rise, leading to a number of primary diseases of chronic renal failure, including chronic nephritis, hypertension and diabetes. According to relevant experts' prediction, China's aging population will reach one-third of the total population by 2050. With the aging society, the prevalence of high blood pressure and high blood sugar will increase significantly.

The article “Prevalence of chronic kidney disease in China: a cross-sectional survey” led by Wang Haiyan, a professor of nephrology at Peking University First Hospital, showed that the overall prevalence of chronic kidney disease was 10·8% in China, therefore the number of patients with chronic kidney disease in Chinese adults is estimated to be about 140 million.

And the awareness rate of chronic kidney disease is only 12.5%. According to the estimated 1.5% proportion of patients with chronic kidney disease who will develop into the patients with end-stage renal disease in the United States,  at the same time taking into account the increasing stock of domestic ESRD patients, and the inproving of patient's life cycle, there are more than 3 million patients with end-stage renal disease in China.

China is a major country in the treatment of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). As of December 31, 2014, about 55,000 peritoneal dialysis patients, with an increase of 17.9% compared with 2013, and about 337,000 hemodialysis patients, with an increase of 18.8% compared with 2013. The number of hemodialysis patients gradually increased, reaching 380,000 in 2015. According to the calculated per capita hemodialysis cost of 80,000 yuan, the size of the hemodialysis market exceeded 30 billion in 2015.

Source(s): China Baogao Online