Drugs that Can Increase the Risk of Renal Failure

1 Drugs that Can Increase the Risk of Renal Failure 

Angiotensin converting enzymes- inhibitors (ACE-inhibitors) are a group of drugs that are very potent in dilating the blood vessels and through this mechanism lower the blood pressure. Therefore they can also improve heart function in patients with heart failure. In some cases they are also used for preventing renal failure in persons with hypertension and/or diabetes. Paradoxically, this later use of ACE-inhibitors 

A common cause of renal failure in the elderly is the use of NSAIDs and it occurs more frequently in women. One to five percent of treatment with NSAIDs leads to some kind of renal dysfunction and mostly vasomotor acute renal failure occurs (Bakris and Kern 1989, Griffin et al. 2000, Henry et al. 1997). 

These drugs are the most prescribed medicines in the world. For certain NSAIDs, ibuprofen and indomethacin, there has been shown a dose response relation for renal failure risk. For individual NSAIDs, those with longer half lives than 12 hours have proved to be more dangerous. There has not been shown any clear advantages for selective cox-2-inhibition to the more unselective in this aspect. 

Finally be aware of the fact that more and more drugs are used by the elderly that can have negative effects on the kidney function. Anti-hypertensive drugs are often needed to reach lower blood pressure levels in the elderly but this can 

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