Renal anemia can not only arise from insufficiency of erythropoietin in
kidneys caused by various reasons, but also result from the disturbed generation
and metabolism of red blood cells. Renal anemia is the common complication of
end stage of Chronic Renal Insufficiency. The degree of renal anemia often has a
positive relationship with the decrease of renal function.
Renal anemia is a secondary anemia and it can be manifested as the occurrence
of the following several pathological changes.
● Reducing of Red Blood Cells.
Decrease of erythropoietin can result in the reducing of red blood cells.
Moreover, imbalanced trace elements, vitamin and nutritional deficiency as well
as the effects of inhibiting factor to erythropoiesis all these can result in
the reducing of erythropoietin,as a result, red blood cells reduce.
● Shortened Life Span of Red Blood Cells.
With excretion and secretion functions, our kidneys can on one side excrete
metabolic products and toxins, on the other side excrete erythropoietin. Owing
to renal damage, our kidneys can not excrete sufficient erythropoietin, as a
result, red blood cells reduce. In addition, due to renal damage, toxic
substances produced by our body can not be excreted smoothly through our
kidneys, causing accumulation of them in our body. Toxic substances can affect
the metabolism of red blood cells and thus shorten the life span of red blood
cells.
● Great Loss of Red Blood Cells
We all know some patients with Chronic Kidney Disease have hematuria which
results from the existence of great amount of red blood cells in urine. Great
loss of red blood cells can also cause anemia. Renal anemia is easy to be
ignored at the first. Due to the unobvious symptom, Chronic Kidney Disease is
hard to be found in the early stage. Therefore, renal anemia usually is
misdiagnosed as other types of anemia. Renal anemia has a close relationship
with renal damage. In most of the cases, patients with Chronic Kidney Disease
have renal anemia and sometimes, renal anemia also is the dominant symptom.
Renal anemia is not an independent disease, but a symptom of kidney disease.
It is the major manifestation of primary kidney disease and Chronic Renal
Insufficiency. Therefore, if we want to remove renal anemia, we must treat
kidney disease first.