This type of issue hits one of our members now and again, when the surgery does not go well, or when multiple issues combine in a bad way. As such, I felt it might be of interest. It is from the Cleveland Clinic Newsletter:
Waking Sleeping Kidneys
Acute renal failure (ARF), the sudden loss of kidney function, affects up to seven percent of patients in a hospital and 30 percent of intensive care unit patients. Blood loss from a surgery or major injury, dehydration or even some medications may shut down the kidneys. Treatments such as dialysis can help replace kidney function, but in some patients, a long delay may occur before kidney function returns.
Emil Paganini, M.D., section head of dialysis and extracorporeal therapy at The Cleveland Clinic, in collaboration with H. David Humes, M.D., of the University of Michigan and other researchers, has helped develop a new renal assist device (RAD) that may lead to new treatments for ARF patients. It could also help patients who suffer from infection and chronic renal failure.
Last year, 10 ARF patients from Ohio and Michigan were treated with the bioartificial RAD, which exposes the patient's blood to new human kidney cells across an artificial membrane. This exposure allows the RAD cells to produce substances that can "talk" to the dormant kidney and other organs, perhaps replacing important but missing signals. This treatment saved 40 percent of the patients and was considered a success by researchers and federal regulators. Now, Dr. Paganini is leading phase II of new FDA-approved trials that will include at least 12 ARF patients at The Cleveland Clinic and perhaps two dozen more patients at four other sites in the United States.
"We're using living cells as metabolic units to mimic what the natural kidney does," says Dr. Paganini. "We know that these cells produce a lot of things like vitamin D, and they help break down insulin. However, the endocrine function of the kidney is only partially understood. One thing we do know is that adding new cells via the RAD system will help the endocrine function of the kidney." While the kidney's main job is to remove waste from the body, its endocrine function also produces certain hormones that can affect other organs in the body.
"We are applying the RAD technique to ARF patients to see if we can make the kidney come back faster," Dr. Paganini says. "This will tell us whether there are signals that the sleeping kidney needs to wake up. Some of those signals may be applicable in patients who have failing kidneys or chronic renal failure."
Source: Cleveland Clinic Magazine, Summer 2004
Click here to go to the Department of Nephrology and Hypertension Web site. <http://www.clevelandclinic.org/nephrology/>
Waking Sleeping Kidneys
Acute renal failure (ARF), the sudden loss of kidney function, affects up to seven percent of patients in a hospital and 30 percent of intensive care unit patients. Blood loss from a surgery or major injury, dehydration or even some medications may shut down the kidneys. Treatments such as dialysis can help replace kidney function, but in some patients, a long delay may occur before kidney function returns.
Emil Paganini, M.D., section head of dialysis and extracorporeal therapy at The Cleveland Clinic, in collaboration with H. David Humes, M.D., of the University of Michigan and other researchers, has helped develop a new renal assist device (RAD) that may lead to new treatments for ARF patients. It could also help patients who suffer from infection and chronic renal failure.
Last year, 10 ARF patients from Ohio and Michigan were treated with the bioartificial RAD, which exposes the patient's blood to new human kidney cells across an artificial membrane. This exposure allows the RAD cells to produce substances that can "talk" to the dormant kidney and other organs, perhaps replacing important but missing signals. This treatment saved 40 percent of the patients and was considered a success by researchers and federal regulators. Now, Dr. Paganini is leading phase II of new FDA-approved trials that will include at least 12 ARF patients at The Cleveland Clinic and perhaps two dozen more patients at four other sites in the United States.
"We're using living cells as metabolic units to mimic what the natural kidney does," says Dr. Paganini. "We know that these cells produce a lot of things like vitamin D, and they help break down insulin. However, the endocrine function of the kidney is only partially understood. One thing we do know is that adding new cells via the RAD system will help the endocrine function of the kidney." While the kidney's main job is to remove waste from the body, its endocrine function also produces certain hormones that can affect other organs in the body.
"We are applying the RAD technique to ARF patients to see if we can make the kidney come back faster," Dr. Paganini says. "This will tell us whether there are signals that the sleeping kidney needs to wake up. Some of those signals may be applicable in patients who have failing kidneys or chronic renal failure."
Source: Cleveland Clinic Magazine, Summer 2004
Click here to go to the Department of Nephrology and Hypertension Web site. <http://www.clevelandclinic.org/nephrology/>
