[Possibility for studying the life expectancy of patients with Balkan endemic nephropathy by dispensary observation].

The follow-up cards of 1100 patients that died of Balkan endemic nephropathy (BEN) within the period 1962-1981 were studied with a view to establishing the incidence of the disease in Vratza district, affection of sex and age and chiefly--the duration of the disease. The authors established that the disease was found in 47 settlements of Vratza district, that the females were more often affected as compared with the males and that the subjects aged from 30 to 70 were most frequently affected. More that the half of the patients with BEN was established by the authors, to die with--in the first 5 years since the onset of the disease, whereas the rest--live longer, in single cases, over 20 years.