Azotemia vs. Uremia

Main Difference

The main difference between Azotemia and Uremia is that the Azotemia is a abnormally high levels of nitrogen in the blood and Uremia is a type of kidney disease, urea in the blood.

• Azotemia

  Azotemia (azot, “nitrogen” + -emia, “blood condition”) is a medical condition characterized by abnormally high levels of nitrogen-containing compounds (such as urea, creatinine, various body waste compounds, and other nitrogen-rich compounds) in the blood. It is largely related to insufficient or dysfunctional filtering of blood by the kidneys. It can lead to uremia and acute kidney injury (kidney failure) if not controlled.

• Uremia

  Uremia is the condition of having “urea in the blood”. Urea is one of the primary components of urine. It can be defined as an excess of amino acid and protein metabolism end products, such as urea and creatinine, in the blood that would be normally excreted in the urine. Uremic syndrome can be defined as the terminal clinical manifestation of kidney failure (also called renal failure). It is the signs, symptoms and results from laboratory tests which result from inadequate excretory, regulatory and endocrine function of the kidneys. Both uremia and uremic syndrome have been used interchangeably to denote a very high plasma urea concentration that is the result of renal failure. The former denotation will be used for the rest of the article.

  Azotemia is another word that refers to high levels of urea and is used primarily when the abnormality can be measured chemically but is not yet so severe as to produce symptoms. Uremia is the pathological manifestations of severe azotemia.

  There is no specific time for the onset of uremia for people with progressive loss of kidney function. People with kidney function below 50% (i.e. a glomerular filtration rate [GFR] between 50 and 60 mL) and over 30 years of age may have uremia to a degree. This means an estimated 8 million people in the United States with a GFR of less than 60 mL have uremic symptoms. The symptoms, such as fatigue, can be very vague, making the diagnosis of impaired renal function difficult. Treatment is to perform dialysis or a renal transplant.