Systems Science Approach to Clinical Assessment of Balkan Endemic Nephropathy

Abstract

Balkan endemic nephropathy often poses an etiological and clinical dilemma especially when a preventive action must be involved. The list of the attitudes can be narrowed considerably by involving a new approach to the assessment of the disease based on the techniques of systems Science. The behaviour of the disease was studied by interlinking compartments, considering representative of components in the system as well as by separate part approach. The biological model that was formalised, consequently, is an integration of a variety of facts regarding the patients ‘condition with an extensive store of medical knowledge. The projections of the model are compared with the data derived from the clinical experiment (Balkan endemic nephropathy). The comparison gives facts that the morphofunetional point of the disease is a State designed as ,,dysmaturation IV” (a break in the development of the kidney during the s.c. interstitial phase or phase IV) and that the body control mechanisms are prc-programmed in responding to the effective relationships, a consequence of the „renocorporal dyscorrelation”. The specific morphfunctional State of the kidney may be explained by hereditary factors.