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Eye Damage Can Start in Prediabetes

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— Study found significant corneal nerve damage even before full-blown type 2 diabetes

Elevated blood glucose poses a threat to the eyes even prior to a diabetes diagnosis, according to a Dutch population study.

In cross-sectional data of Maastricht Study participants, a more adverse glucose metabolism status was linked with a lower z score of corneal nerve fiber measures compared with a normal status (-0.14, 95% CI -0.25 to -0.04, P for trend=0.001), reported Sara Mokhtar, a PhD student at Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and colleagues. Read more in MedPage Today.

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Graft and Patient Survival Following Simultaneous Pancreas-Kidney Transplant

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For patients with diabetes and end-stage kidney disease, the only persistently successful treatment is simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplant (SPK). However, according to M. Ji and colleagues, SPK has a technical failure rate of 7% to 22%. Technical failure is defined as a graft loss within 3 months of transplantation.

The researchers conducted a study designed to quantify the impact of 3-month pancreas function on kidney graft failure and patient survival following SPK in patients with type 1 diabetes. Read more from Nephrology Times.

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1M organ transplants – what comes next?

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The director of the Hume-Lee Transplant Center reflects on the milestone of 1 million transplanted organs in the U.S. and what’s next for the world of transplantation.

In September 2022, the United States reached 1 million organ transplants. Far outpacing other countries with this accomplishment, the demand for transplants still drastically outweighs the supply. Currently, the national organ waitlist is over 100,000 people and many die on the waitlist.

To learn more about how VCU Health’s Hume-Lee Transplant Center is working to meet this demand and what’s next for the future of transplants, we sat down with Dr. Marlon Levy, chief medical officer at VCU Medical Center and director of the transplant center.
Read the full story from VCU Health.

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Premature aging may play a role in the progression of CKD

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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.

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How to ask for living kidney donation

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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:

  • Dialysis
  • Kidney transplant from a deceased donor
  • Kidney transplant from a living donor

    Read more from Ohio State Health & Discovery.
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Transplant organization releases guidance on monkeypox

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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.”

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Our Hands Are Tied: Treating Prediabetes in Kids

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— We urgently need more research on pharmacological interventions for this growing epidemic

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.

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For Black Patients, Nixing ‘Race Adjustment’ May Improve Kidney Transplant Odds

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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.

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Study reports improvement in pediatric liver transplant outcomes over past decades

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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.

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Medicare is using one of its biggest hammers to try to fix the dialysis system: how providers are paid

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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.

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