Dialysis device developed by Imperial College team a step closer to patients

A project to develop technology that could improve outcomes for people with kidney disease received a boost, following a £1 million grant.

More than 2.5 million people worldwide have kidney conditions that require their blood to be routinely filtered by a dialysis machine. Most patients undergo a surgical procedure to prepare their veins for coping with the filtration process. This involves a surgeon creating a connection in the arm, called a fistula, between an artery and a vein, which is then connected to a dialysis machine. Although they are the gold standard in medical care, fistulas are unreliable, often blocking up and requiring repeated costly repair operations. In the US alone, $US 4.6 billion is spent annually to treat failing fistulas.

ePATH system is more intuitive and less invasive for patients

Now researchers from Imperial College London are developing the first minimally invasive procedure that uses a synthetic tube, called a stent graft, to form the fistula for dialysis. The team have also developed the prototype technology for inserting the stent graft between a patient’s artery and vein with precision and accuracy.

The device is called an Electronic Percutaneous Anastomosis Technology for Haemodialysis or ePATH. The researchers have received the £1 million funding from the NHS National Institute for Health Research to further develop the system and take it through patient trials.

The device enables a stent to be deployed inside the arm

To read more about this research, read the Imperial College article

DaVita Clinic fined.

This is not the sort of news we'd like to be reporting.
A DaVita dialysis center in Connecticut has been fined by the state for multiple violations. They problems involve hygiene mainly - disinfection routines, hand hygiene practices, water testing procedures and even such unlikely events at a clinic as having a leaky roof, rusty metal equipment and supplements that had passed their expiry dated. In a clinic with rooms at 15C / 60F.
Inspectors found that documentation of assessments were not always fully up to date.
You can read the news item here.

HPV vaccine may be effective in adolescents with kidney disease, but less so in those with a kidney transplant

Contradictory results have been published about a HPV vaccine, which does well for some patients but is less effective in others.

So what if someone said a vaccine would boost your immune system and help a great deal if you suffered from HVP and cervical cancer was a possibility? Great let me have it is the likeliest response. Unfortunately it's not as helpful if you have already had a transplant.

A recent scientific report says: -
Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination stimulates robust and sustained immune responses in girls and young women with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and those on dialysis, but less optimal responses to the vaccine were observed among those with a kidney transplant. The findings, which appear in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN), suggest that HPV vaccination provides considerable benefits for kidney disease and dialysis patients but may not be as beneficial for kidney transplant recipients.
Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide and is almost entirely caused by HPV infections. Girls and young women with CKD, as well as those who have developed kidney failure that requires dialysis or a kidney transplant, have compromised immune systems, and as a result they have a significantly elevated risk of developing cervical cancer and genital warts if they become infected with HPV. Therefore, the potential health benefits of HPV vaccination may be substantial in this vulnerable population.

The scientists found that study participants with CKD and those on dialysis had antibody levels above the threshold that indicates protection from infection, but a significant proportion of patients with kidney transplants showed evidence of an inadequate antibody response.

Further work is planned to help the unfortunate patients who have had a transplant and are at risk of HVP

More details are available here

Drug Tolvaptan gives hope for Brits living with kidney disease

The drug Tolvaptan has been given the green light in the UK as the first-ever treatment for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. A few months earlier it also received approval in Europe. It's the first ever treatment for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), an incurable genetic condition that can cause heart attacks, stroke and kidney failure. The disease hits 60,000 people in the UK alone, leading to many cysts forming on their kidneys, leading to massive size increases for these vital organs.

The patient takes a tablet twice a day, which slows the rate of cyst development. After getting the go-ahead, it's expected to be available to patients from early 2016. The disease is responsible for one in ten people who end up on dialysis and one in eight who end up having a transplant. Sadly ADPKD is a genetic condition,one out of two children from a parent with ADPKD will have the disease.

You can read more about its approval on News Medical Net and in the UK's Daily Mail

Wales changes the law on organ donors

Wales, part of the United Kingdom, has some autonomy on law making, and today they are implementing a law.

A GREAT law!

From today, in Wales it is now the law that adults will be regarded as organ donors, unless they opt out of organ donation. This is similar to the law in some other countries, but not the rest of the UK. Amazingly, as the UK only has one transplant list, this will help people everywhere in the UK.

In Wales, more than one million people - 34% of the population - have registered to opt in already and only 86,000 have opted out. This is great news as in the past year, 14 people died whilst waiting for a transplant in Wales, while there are currently 224 people on the waiting list, including eight children. The figures for the rest of the UK, of course, are much higher, by more than a factor of ten. To the extent that roughly 3 people die every day in the UK waiting for a transplant.

The change in the law aims to increase the number of donors by 25%. Let's hope it succeeds.

Let's hope the rest of the UK pass the same law. Soon.