Kidney Disease: A Hidden Risk
Fast Facts on Kidney Disease in Illinois and the U.S.
Prevalence
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26 million American adults, (1 in 9) have kidney disease, and most don’t know it. This equates to more
than 1.1 million Illinoisans.
1 in 3 American adults is at high risk for developing kidney disease
90,000 Americans die annually due to kidney disease, making it the ninth leading cause of death in the
United States
In 2010 there were 117,000 new cases of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD)
Causes
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Major risk factors for kidney disease include diabetes, high blood pressure, family history of kidney failure
and being age 60 or older
72% of all incidents of kidney failure in the U.S. are caused by undiagnosed, untreated or poorly managed
diabetes and/or high blood pressure
25.8 million Americans have diabetes
369,000 (about 9%) people over the age of 18 in Cook County are living with diabetes (as of 2012)
By 2015, more than 13% of people living in Chicago are projected to have diabetes
Wait List for Organs
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As of June 2014, more than 120,000 people are waiting for organ transplants nationwide. More than
100,000 of those people are waiting for a kidney transplant.
As of June 2014, more than 5,300 people in Illinois are waiting for an organ transplant. Of those
people, 4,600, or 87%, are waiting for a kidney.
14 people die each day while waiting for a kidney transplant
Organ Donation & Transplantation
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One organ donor can save or enhance the lives of up to 25 other people
Major organs that can be donated after death are the liver, heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, and small
intestine
In 2013, 677 kidney transplants were performed in Illinois. Of those, 382 came from deceased
donors, and 295 came from living donors.
A person in Illinois can register to become an organ, tissue, and eye donor at any Secretary of State’s
Office or by visiting www.DonateLifeIllinois.org
Cost
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More than 7% of the total Medicare budget is spent on treating kidney disease, while CKD patients make
up only 1% of the total Medicare population
Nationally, $53 billion taxpayer dollars are spent per year to treat people with kidney disease
The amount required to keep one patient on dialysis for one year is $70,000
The annual cost of the Medicare ESRD program is $29 billion (as of 2009)
In Illinois, the annual cost of Medicare per patient is $77,885, while the annual cost of Medicare per
dialysis patient is $90,981 and per organ transplant recipient is $36,000 (as of 2011)
The total medical and indirect societal cost of diabetes projected for Chicago in 2015 is $12.4 billion
For more information, please visit www.nkfi.org
or call (800) 9-KIDNEY.
Sources of Facts and Statistics
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/factsheets/kidney.htm and
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/pdf/ndfs_2011.pdf), National Institute of Health (http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/kustats/),
United Network of Organ Sharing and Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network
(http://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/latestData/rptData.asp), National Diabetes Education Program (http://ndep.nih.gov/), Changing Diabetes
Barometer (http://www.changingdiabetesbarometer.com/diabetes-data/countries/USA/Illinois/Chicago.aspx)