Renal Aging and Fibrosis in the Elderly: Frontiers in Non-Invasive Assessment

Abstract

Today’s society has gradually entered an aging phase, and among the elderly population, the risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is significantly increased. Renal fibrosis is the key pathological mechanism for the development of chronic kidney disease to end-stage renal disease. With the increase in age, the phenomenon of glomerular sclerosis and interstitial fibrosis in aging kidneys gradually aggravates, and the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) decreases, further affecting renal function. Fibrosis not only accelerates the loss of renal function but also significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, which seriously affects the quality of life and life expectancy of patients. This paper reviews the relevant literature and discusses the characteristics of an aging kidney and the diagnostic methods for renal fibrosis.

Keywords

Renal aging / Renal fibrosis / Chronic kidney disease / Diagnosis

Author Contributions

Q.C: writing the manuscript, and approving the final version. J.Z: reviewing and editing the manuscript, and approving the final version.

Ethics Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Funding

Key Medical Research Project of Jiangsu Provincial Health Commission, ‘Application Research of Multimodal Imaging System for Renal Function in the Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Targeted Intervention of Acute Kidney Injury’ (K2024051).

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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