What are the IRIS stages of kidney disease in dogs?
After your veterinarian has performed a physical exam, urinalysis, and chemistry panel, he or she can compare these results to the IRIS guidelines. One caveat to that is dogs who are ill or dehydrated at the initial vet visit. In that case, your vet can’t accurately stage your dog’s kidney disease until your dog is rehydrated and feeling better.
The guidelines divide the progression of chronic kidney failure into four sequential stages. IRIS bases the stages on clinical findings plus creatinine and/or SDMA values (preferably both). The stages are as follows:
What is IRIS and what makes their guidelines so useful?
IRIS stands for the International Renal Interest Society. It was created in 1998 by an international group of veterinarians devoted to advancing the scientific understanding of kidney disease in small animals. IRIS is led by a board of 14 independent veterinarians from countries all over the world. Each has expertise in kidney function and kidney disease.
The mission of IRIS is to help veterinary practitioners better diagnose, understand, and treat renal disease in cats and dogs. They knew that to achieve that mission they needed to first establish an internationally recognized set of guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of kidney disease. That way everyone was speaking the same “kidney disease language.”
I would say they did a pretty good job.
The guidelines IRIS developed help veterinarians communicate clearly among themselves and to pet parents dealing with kidney disease. They accomplish this by providing a clear and systematic way to “stage” the degree of kidney dysfunction.
What is chronic renal failure? Is it the same as chronic kidney disease?
Many people think that ‘chronic kidney failure’ or ‘chronic renal failure’ means that the kidneys have stopped working and are not making urine. This is not the case. By definition, chronic renal failure (CRF), or chronic kidney disease (CKD) is the inability of the kidneys to efficiently filter the blood of waste products, not the inability to produce urine. Ironically, most dogs in kidney failure produce large quantities of urine, but the bodys toxic wastes are not being effectively eliminated.
How Long Can You Stay In Stage 3 Kidney Disease? Stage 3 Kidney Disease Life Expectancy, CKD
Prognosis is associated with severity of disease. Studies have shown shorter median survival times in dogs with higher IRIS stages. Median survival time for IRIS Stage 1 dogs was over 400 days, Stage 2 ranged from 200 to 400 days, Stage 3 ranged from 110 to 200 days, and Stage 4 ranged from 14 to 80 days.