Prevalence of Kidney Dysfunction among Orthopaedic Patients in Northwestern Nigeria

Kidney dysfunction in orthopaedic cases may be as a result of kidney injury due to fracture, burns, osteomyelitis, spinal injury, spinal tuberculosis, sickle cell disease and various forms of arthritis. This study aimed at evaluating the biomarkers of kidney dysfunction among patients attending National othropeadic hospital Dala Kano. It is a hospital based prospective study conducted on a total of one hundred (100) subjects; sixty (60) orthopaedic patients and forty (40) apparently healthy individuals between the ages of 20-80 years among both sexes. Serum urea, creatinine, uric acid and chloride were estimated by spectrometric methods; sodium and potassium by flame photometric method; bicarbonate by titrimetric method while eGFR and BMI were calculated. The number of males 43(71.7) was higher than that of females 17(28.3).The overall prevalence of kidney dysfunction is 1.7%. Kidney dysfunction was found among gouty arthritis patients within the age group of 61-80 years, however none was found among 20-40 and 41-60 years. There was significant difference (p<0.05) in mean serum potassium (4.0±04 and 3.8±0.4 mmol/L), eGFR (188±54 and 152±33 ml/min/1.73m2) and BMI (21.28±4.4 and 25.48±5.6 kg/m2) between males and females. The prevalence of Kidney dysfunction in orthopaedic patients was found to be higher in males than females and increasing with age {(20-60 (0%); 61-80 (10%)}, however, most of the biomarkers of kidney function are irrespective of gender.