Dialysis patients diagnosed with depression are nearly twice as likely to be hospitalized or die within a year than those who are not depressed, a. UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher has found. In the study, available online and in the Sept. 15 issue of Kidney International, scientists monitored 98 dialysis patients for up to 14 months. More than a quarter of dialysis patients received a psychiatric diagnosis of some form of depression based on a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th edition (DSM IV)........

For patients receiving kidney transplants, therapy with cholesterol-lowering "statin" drugs may lead to longer survival, reports a study in the November 2008 Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). "Statin treatment is well established for the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease in the general population, but its effectiveness in patients with kidney disease is unclear," comments Dr. Rainer Oberbauer of the Medical University of Vienna, one of the study authors. "We showed that statin treatment was indeed linked to a lower risk of death in renal transplant recipients.".......

No significant difference in death rates or other outcomes was found between a group of patients with acute kidney injury that received intensive dialysis and another group that received a more standard regimen of dialysis, as per a joint Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) study reported in the recent issue of the New England Journal (NEJM). Acute kidney injury, also called acute renal failure, is a common complication in hospitalized patients that is linked to very high mortality rates. In-hospital mortality rates of critically-ill patients typically range from 50 percent to 80 percent........

Live kidney donors suffer minimal health problems and 90 per cent would strongly encourage other people to a become a donor if a partner or family member needed a transplant, as per a research studyof more than 300 people reported in the recent issue of the UK-based urology journal BJU International........

But an unhealthy kidney costs more-about $16 billion more, as per Prabir Roy-Chaudhury, MD, PhD, associate professor in the division of nephrology and high blood pressure at the University of Cincinnati (UC). "It costs about $17 billion a year to care for patients with end-stage kidney disease," he said........

Surgeons specializing in laparoscopic procedures at UT Southwestern Medical Center have successfully removed a patients kidney by performing a unique nephrectomy entirely through the belly button. Dr. Jeffrey Cadeddu, associate professor of urology and radiology, performed the single keyhole access surgery, the first of its kind involving a kidney. The entire procedure was completed with only one incision and will leave the patient with a barely noticeable scar tucked in the umbilicus, or navel........

A relatively new, minimally invasive therapy was 93 percent successful in eradicating cancerous kidney tumors, as per a recent study conducted by scientists from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC. I have performed a number of radiofrequency ablations of renal tumors and the results looked promising, said Ronald J. Zagoria, MD, lead author of the study. I wanted to scientifically review the data to better assess the results and look for patterns that might predict success or complications, he said........

Scientists from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University of Michigan have discovered a gene that protects us against a serious kidney disease. In the current online issue of Nature Genetics they report that mutations in the gene cause nephronopthisis (NPHP) in humans and mice. NPHP is a disease marked by kidney degeneration during childhood that leads to kidney failure requiring organ transplantation. The insights might help develop effective, noninvasive therapies........

Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corporation and Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that the New England Journal of Medicine has published their pivotal Phase III trial demonstrating that Nexavar (sorafenib) tablets doubled median progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), or kidney cancer. The data, as assessed by independent radiologic review, are from the Treatment Approaches in Renal Cancer Global Evaluation Trial (TARGET) – the largest randomized controlled trial ever conducted in advanced RCC. .......

Scientists at Mayo Clinic have successfully isolated nanoparticles from human kidney stones in cell cultures and have isolated proteins, RNA and DNA that appear to be linked to nanoparticles. The findings, which appear in the recent issue of the Journal of Investigative Medicine, are significant because it is one step closer in solving the mystery of whether nanoparticles are viable living forms that can lead to disease -- in this case, kidney stones........

The new "smart" drugs are a really exciting element of cancer medicine. One of the new molecularly-targeted cancer drugs is Sutent. It is a "multi-targeted kinase inhibitor." A drug that inhibits several proteins involved in triggering replication in cancer cells. Basically, inhibits various kinases, a type of enzyme that transfers phosphate groups from high-energy donor molecules to specific target molecules........

Despite significant improvements in dialysis therapys, currently over 20% of the 350,000 maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients in the United States die each year. A study published in Hemodialysis International finds that this high mortality rate may be attributed to malnutrition. MHD patients experience what has been termed the "obesity paradox," wherein obesity is linked to increased chance of survival. "A larger body fat mass as seen in obesity probably represents protective reserves that may mitigate the adverse effects of malnutrition in patients," as per Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh M.D., author of the study........

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine scientists have observed that an enzyme called ACE2 may hold the potential to treat diabetic kidney disease, the most common form of kidney disease. In the laboratory, scientists led by Daniel Batlle, professor of medicine in the Feinberg School, chief of the nephrology/high blood pressure division and staff nephrologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, have found low levels of the ACE2 enzyme in the glomeruli of the kidneys of diabetic mice. When ACE2 was further decreased with an inhibitor drug, kidney disease worsened. Studies are now needed using compounds that increase the level of ACE2 in the kidneys of diabetic mice to see if it reverses or prevents kidney disease from developing, Batlle said........

A study recently published in Hemodialysis International observed that more frequent hemodialysis therapys (five or more weekly) can significantly increase the survival rate of patients suffering from irreversible kidney failure. Typical therapy in the U.S. generally involves three sessions weekly. The study examines the mortality rate of 117 U.S. patients. Those receiving five or more therapys per week were shown to have a 61% better chance of survival when in comparison to patients receiving conventional therapy........

Topiramate (Topamax), a drug usually prescribed to treat seizures and migraine headaches, can increase the propensity of calcium phosphate kidney stones, scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. A study - the largest cross-sectional examination of how the long-term use of topiramate affects kidney-stone formation - appears in the recent issue of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases........