Nomenclature for kidney function and disease: executive summary and glossary from a Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Consensus Conference

Abstract

A primary obligation of medical journals is the responsible, professional, and expeditious delivery of knowledge from researchers and practitioners to the wider community [1]. The task of journal editors, therefore, rests not merely in selecting what to publish, but in large measure judging how it can best be communicated. The challenge of improving descriptions of kidney function and disease in medical publishing was the impetus for a Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Consensus Conference held in June 2019. The conference goals included standardizing and refining kidney-related nomenclature used in Englishlanguage scientific articles and developing a glossary that can be used by journals [2]. The rationale for the conference was that the worldwide burden of kidney disease is rising, but public awareness remains limited, underscoring the need for effective communication by stakeholders in the kidney health community [3-6]. Despite this need, the nomenclature for describing kidney function and disease lacks uniformity and clarity. Two decades ago, a survey of hundreds of published articles and meeting abstracts reported a broad array of overlapping, confusing terms for chronic kidney disease (CKD) and advocated adoption of unambiguous terminology [7]. Nevertheless, terms flagged by that analysis as problematic, such as 'chronic renal failure' and 'predialysis,' still appear in current-day publications. A coherent, shared nomenclature could improve communication at all levels, to not only foster better appreciation of the burden of disease but also aid understanding of how patients feel about their disease, allow more effective communication between kidney disease specialists and other clinicians, advance more straightforward comparison and integration of datasets, enable better recognition of gaps in knowledge for future research, and facilitate more comprehensive public health policies for acute and chronic kidney disease. Developing consistent, patient-centered, and precise descriptions of kidney function and disease in the scientific literature is an important objective to align

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