One of the major issues is the apparently increasing incidence of chronic interstitial nephritis of unknown etiology. Many experimental models and some observations in humans suggest that such lesions may be related to chemical intoxication, which include drugs, industrial poisons and environmental pollution. We are rapidly approaching the western figures, where almost half of the patients on dialysis are diabetic. Scandinavian data indicate that adequate control of diabetes does reduce the development of diabetic nephropathy which accords with recent information provided by the DCC trial. It is hoped that our reaction to this information will be more appropriate in the forthcoming century.
Similar information applies to hypertensive nephrosclerosis.
It is now increasingly recognized that hypertension of non-renal origin is a major cause of renal failure in the fifties of age. The data provided by the Egyptian Hypertension Society suggest that one in four Egyptians is, or will become, hypertensive, which displays the magnitude at the renal side of the problem. About two thirds are those suffering from obstruction and infection associated with urinary Schistosomiasis. As mentioned earlier, it is hoped that both forms of renal disease will regress in the next decade or two, as fresh infestation gets less frequent. Like in other tropical countries, the prevalence of proliferative glomerulonephritis is disproportionately high in Egypt.