Abstract

Background

In health examinations for local inhabitants in cadmium-polluted areas, only healthy people are investigated, suggesting that patients with severe cadmium nephropathy or itai-itai disease may be overlooked. Therefore, we performed hospital-based screening to detect patients with cadmium nephropathy in two core medical institutes in cadmium-polluted areas in Akita prefecture, Japan.

Methods

Subjects for this screening were selected from patients aged 60 years or older with elevated serum creatinine levels and no definite renal diseases. We enrolled 35 subjects from a hospital in Odate city and 22 from a clinic in Kosaka town. Urinary ß2-microglobulin and blood and urinary cadmium levels were measured.

Results

The criteria for renal tubular dysfunction and the over-accumulation of cadmium were set as a urinary ß2-microglobulin level higher than 10,000 μg/g cr. and a blood cadmium level higher than 6 μg/L or urinary cadmium level higher than 10 μg/g cr., respectively. Subjects who fulfilled both criteria were diagnosed with cadmium nephropathy. Six out of 57 patients (10.5% of all subjects) had cadmium nephropathy.

Conclusions

This hospital-based screening is a very effective strategy for detecting patients with cadmium nephropathy in cadmium-polluted areas, playing a complementary role in health examinations for local inhabitants.

Registration number

No. 6, date of registration: 6 June, 2010 (Akita Rosai Hospital), and No. 1117, date of registration: 26 December, 2013 (Akita University).

Details

Title
Hospital-based screening to detect patients with cadmium nephropathy in cadmium-polluted areas in Japan
Author
Sasaki, Toru 1 ; Horiguchi, Hyogo 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Arakawa, Akira 3 ; Oguma, Etsuko 2 ; Komatsuda, Atsushi 4 ; Sawada, Kenichi 4 ; Murata, Katsuyuki 5 ; Yokoyama, Kazuhito 6 ; Matsukawa, Takehisa 6 ; Chiba, Momoko 6 ; Omori, Yuki 7 ; Kamikomaki, Norihiro 8 

1  Department of Internal Medicine, Akita Rosai Hospital, Japan Organization of Occupational Health and Safe, Akita, Japan; Fukunaga Clinic, Akita, Japan 
2  Department of Hygiene, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan; Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Akita University, Graduate School of Medicine, Akita, Japan; Department of Environmental and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Jichi Medical University, Tochigi, Japan 
3  Kosaka-machi Clinic, Akita, Japan 
4  Department of Hematology, Nephrology, and Rheumatology, Akita University Graduate School of Medicine, Akita, Japan 
5  Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Akita University, Graduate School of Medicine, Akita, Japan 
6  Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, Juntendo University Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan 
7  Department of Hygiene, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan; Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, Juntendo University Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan 
8  Department of Internal Medicine, Akita Rosai Hospital, Japan Organization of Occupational Health and Safe, Akita, Japan; Department of Emergency, Saiseikai Utsunomiya Hospital, Utsunomiya, Japan 
Pages
1-8
Publication year
2019
Publication date
Dec 2019
Publisher
Komiyama Printing Co., Ltd.
ISSN
1342078X
e-ISSN
13474715
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12199-019-0762-3
ProQuest document ID
2171314497
Copyright
Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine is a copyright of Springer, (2019). All Rights Reserved., © 2019. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.