A better understanding of chronic kidney disease may be found in the study of aging, according to a presenter at the International Conference on Dialysis.
As Healio has previously reported, aging increases the prevalence of some diseases, including chronic kidney disease. Moreover, the loss of kidney function may result in a disconnect between chronological and biological age, according to a presentation.
Read the full story in Healio.
BEING DIAGNOSED WITH KIDNEY FAILURE comes with many challenges. Medications, dialysis, the physical and emotional exhaustion. It’s all the more difficult if you develop end-stage kidney disease and need a kidney transplant.
For these individuals, there are only three treatment options:
The American Society of Transplantation has released guidance on preventive measures and treatment of monkeypox for individuals with an organ transplant, along with guidance for accepting donated organs from individuals with the virus.
“This communication is intended to inform the transplant community of the potential risk caused by monkeypox to our transplant patients,” members of the American Society of Transplantation Monkeypox Task Force wrote. “While there have been no published data on monkeypox in transplant recipients, there is an imminent threat to this immunocompromised group of patients, if the ongoing human-to-human spread continues.”
Prediabetes is an abnormal state of glucose homeostasis in which blood glucose levels are elevated above the range of normal but are not high enough to be classified as diabetes. A staggering 28% of U.S. youth ages 12 to 19 years are living with prediabetes. This number more than doubled from 1999 to 2018. Prediabetes and obesity are strongly correlated in a high-risk genetic backdrop, making them almost two sides of the same coin. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused a rapid increase in both these problems in children.
There is increasing evidence to support that even before its progression to type 2 diabetes, prediabetes independently is a toxic metabolic state causing an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality. Read more in MedPage Today.
UCSF-Hennepin County Study Shows Race-Free Creatinine Formula Helps Equalize Access
Using equations to calculate kidney function that do not include race adjustments would result in Black patients gaining time on the transplant waitlist before their kidneys fail that matched similar durations for white patients, according to a new study led by UC San Francisco and Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
In their study, publishing in the journal CJASN on Sept. 19, 2022, the researchers compared the length of time from waitlist eligibility to kidney failure for Black and white patients. Read more from the University of California San Francisco.
Study Rundown: Outcomes in pediatric liver transplantations have improved over the course of the last few decades. This study aimed to evaluate patient characteristics, indications for pediatric liver transplant, and outcomes in a larger cohort of approximately 14,500 patients who underwent pediatric liver transplant in Europe prior to 18 years of age. Read more in 2 minute medicine.
Chronic kidney disease, already a problem affecting millions of Americans, is only expected to become more prevalent as the country ages. For those with end-stage disease, a transplant is the ideal treatment, but dialysis is their reality. Hundreds of thousands of Americans flock to clinics three times a week to have their blood filtered through — in the absence of a functioning kidney — a machine.
As a medical treatment, dialysis is a stopgap measure that fails to fix a chronic problem (average life expectancy on dialysis is five to 10 years). As an industry, dialysis has significant flaws, including a lag in home dialysis use. Read more in STAT.
Xenotransplantation holds a promising future for many patients, especially those with end-stage renal disease or uncontrollable serum glucose levels. Porcine organs are viewed as the perfect candidate for a source of xenografts. However, the recipient’s immunity, incompatibility of biologic systems, and transfer of new pathogenic organisms are all obstacles to clinical xenotransplantation, in addition to the risk of zoonosis and xenoantigens. Genetic modification of pigs using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) resulted in the production of porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV)-free offsprings with the consequent removal of many clinical complications post-transplantation. Read the complete abstract from Cureus.
Recognizing the potential for vaccine administration errors with look-alike vials, CDC staff shared best practices for giving the right vaccine to the right person at the right dose, during a Clinician Outreach and Communication Activity (COCA) webinar earlier this week.
The most concerning possible vaccination error would be that a child might receive a higher dose of vaccine than indicated for his or her age, because of the potential for increased reactogenicity — for example an arm that is more sore than normal or a fever — Elisha Hall, PhD, Clinical Guidelines Lead and a Health Education Specialist for the CDC, told MedPage Today in a follow-up phone call. Read the full story in MedPage Today.
What do you say to a family whose gift is keeping you alive?
That’s what Rufus Scott has on his mind. After living with a declining heart for 15 years, the 53-year-old father of three received a new heart on June 12, 2020, during a 12-hour transplant surgery at Emory University Hospital. Read the full story in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.