We read of what at first seems like good news.
The number of people with diabetes going on to treatment for end stage renal disease in the US has dropped, according to a study reported on MedPageToday. It has fallen by a massive 35% between 1996 and 2007. But before you get excited, the question is why has it fallen?
Well, apparently the number of people with diabetes is increasing in the US, increasing a great deal in fact. So overall the actual number of diabetics who are on ESRD treatment has increased.
It is not really clear why the rate at which diabetics are moving on to dialysis has dropped - diabetes is still the single biggest cause of ESRD.
Does it mean more people have had undiagnosed diabetes and as medical techniques improve, many more cases have been reported, pushing up the apparent number of diabetics, while the number who need dialysis has only increased a little bit (presumably they'd be the worst cases, unlikely to go unrecognised)?
Further research is needed to settle this.
Friday, 5 November 2010
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Anemia Drug Aranesp Considered Safe Before Dialysis
Amgen's anemia drug Aranesp was linked to an increase in strokes in a study of kidney patients last year, prompting the company to include a warning in its prescription notes. This badly affected its sales and general use, as you can imagine. But recently the USA's Food and Drug Administration had a panel of outside advisers vote on whether or not it should continue to be used, and decided that it can be used after all. Many news sites reported on this, including Bloomberg's
It seems that while the FDA acknowledges the possibility of risks being associated with the drug, they feel it can be used in kidney patients who are not yet on dialysis, and that more work needs to be done on the possible problem. The panel which recommended this is now looking into what the recommended dose should be.
With anemia a common side effect in kidney disease sufferers, some drugs such as Aranesp are used to boost production of hemoglobin.
It seems that while the FDA acknowledges the possibility of risks being associated with the drug, they feel it can be used in kidney patients who are not yet on dialysis, and that more work needs to be done on the possible problem. The panel which recommended this is now looking into what the recommended dose should be.
With anemia a common side effect in kidney disease sufferers, some drugs such as Aranesp are used to boost production of hemoglobin.
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Fresenius gets another warning
America's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning to the well-known provider of dialysis care and treatment Fresenius about problems with two of its products - Liberty Cycler sets and Naturalyte Acid Concentrate products. The warning is over a claimed failure to deal with products already in the hands of dialysis patients. Apparently the units can leak and although the company is said to have identified the problem and sorted it, units out in the field, so to speak are not having the problem resolved.
If you regularly browse medical news sites, you may have seen this reported in the last few days.
The full warning notice can be viewed at the FDA website. It lists five points that they want corrected within 15 working days.
This is not the first warning that the FDA has issued to Fresenius - there were complaints about their Phoslo gelcaps product three times in the last 18 months.
If you regularly browse medical news sites, you may have seen this reported in the last few days.
The full warning notice can be viewed at the FDA website. It lists five points that they want corrected within 15 working days.
This is not the first warning that the FDA has issued to Fresenius - there were complaints about their Phoslo gelcaps product three times in the last 18 months.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Drug Shows Hope for Polycystic Kidney Disease Sufferers
A new, experimental drug appears to reduce the size and the number of cysts when tested on mice.
PKD is a common fatal inherited disease, and at the present moment there is no treatment available for it. Eventually it leads to loss of kidney function, and eventually dialysis or a transplant becomes necessary.
By inhibiting a receptor called c-Met, the drug lead to less cyst formation. It was tested by giving the compound to pregnant mice and examining their embryos.
The next stage to continue the research, trying adult mice, other animal models and eventually, check the drug's usefulness in humans. With all drug research, this will be a long and careful process to avoid any side effects.
The research article can be read at The Journal of Clinical Investigation. It's a very technical article, as you'd expect for a research paper.
PKD is a common fatal inherited disease, and at the present moment there is no treatment available for it. Eventually it leads to loss of kidney function, and eventually dialysis or a transplant becomes necessary.
By inhibiting a receptor called c-Met, the drug lead to less cyst formation. It was tested by giving the compound to pregnant mice and examining their embryos.
The next stage to continue the research, trying adult mice, other animal models and eventually, check the drug's usefulness in humans. With all drug research, this will be a long and careful process to avoid any side effects.
The research article can be read at The Journal of Clinical Investigation. It's a very technical article, as you'd expect for a research paper.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Implantable Artificial Kidney - coming soon
A recent news item immediately caught my eye. It described research led by Dr Shuvo Roy at the University of California San Francisco on an implantable artificial kidney (and another link to the work). The plan is to produce a device the size of a coffee cup.
A filtering membrane will be produced using the same silicon fabrication technology as used in the computer industry to create the fine details of computer chips, allowing very small holes to be created for the filtration process.
Specially engineered compartments, called a BioCartridge, will be created to hold the patient's own kidney cells. This 'bioreactor' part of the device will be grown on the matrix that acts as the filter.
Mr Bole said: 'Those cells will perform the other functions of the original kidney cells, such as regulating vitamin D levels, water levels and metabolic function. So patients would NOT need immunosuppressant drugs because the device will use each patient’s own cells.'
We hear of wearable dialysis machines at regular intervals (our February 2010 post on this topic), but this device could be one step beyond that, and reduce the problems of finding suitable donors for transplants (although we have also posted on methods which allow transplants where the donor is not a close match for the recipient).
A filtering membrane will be produced using the same silicon fabrication technology as used in the computer industry to create the fine details of computer chips, allowing very small holes to be created for the filtration process.
Specially engineered compartments, called a BioCartridge, will be created to hold the patient's own kidney cells. This 'bioreactor' part of the device will be grown on the matrix that acts as the filter.
Mr Bole said: 'Those cells will perform the other functions of the original kidney cells, such as regulating vitamin D levels, water levels and metabolic function. So patients would NOT need immunosuppressant drugs because the device will use each patient’s own cells.'
We hear of wearable dialysis machines at regular intervals (our February 2010 post on this topic), but this device could be one step beyond that, and reduce the problems of finding suitable donors for transplants (although we have also posted on methods which allow transplants where the donor is not a close match for the recipient).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)