Molecular targets identified by a Spanish research team may hold the key to freedom for some sufferers of kidney disease. A new study published in Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM), dmm.biologists.org, reveals the cellular signals which cause one treatment for kidney failure to lose its usefulness over time.

Modification of the current screening criteria are needed for diagnosing patients with autosomal dominant polycystic disease (ADPKD), according to a study appearing in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The results suggest that some patients with a milder form of the disease may otherwise be misdiagnosed.

Labs that conduct the highest number of routine blood tests are more likely than others to report estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), an important measure of kidney function that can identify early kidney disease, according to a survey funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

A 30 percent increase in chronic kidney disease over the past decade has prompted the U.S. Renal Data System (USRDS) to issue for the first time a separate report documenting the magnitude of the disease, which affects an estimated 27 million Americans and accounts for more than 24 percent of Medicare costs.

"How does the kidney know how to do it and why does it break in hypertension?" says Dr. Edward W. Inscho, physiologist in the Medical College of Georgia Schools of Medicine and Graduate Studies.

The drug rituximab causes considerable kidney injury healing in patients with membranous nephropathy, a common form of kidney disease, according to a study appearing in the November 2008 issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN).

Patients with kidney disease—especially end-stage renal disease (ESRD) requiring dialysis—are less likely to receive recommended medications after a heart attack, reports a study in the September 2008 Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN).

More frequent hemodialysis sessions might improve the health of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), but under reasonable assumptions of expected benefit, the overall costs are likely to increase, according to a study appearing in the September 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN).

The Stowers Institute’s Rong Li Lab has discovered that a protein previously shown to have a role in inflammation may also have a role in the formation of cysts in Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD) — one of the most common life-threatening genetic diseases — and has shown that a drug inhibiting the protein can slow the disease in mice.

Annabel Ferriman, an editor at the BMJ, gives a frank first person account of her journey through the "protracted" and sometimes "frustrating" process of becoming a live kidney donor to her friend, Ray, who had been suffering from polycystic kidney disease for eight years.

An Australian led global study, the largest of its kind, has found that the risk of developing serious kidney disease and other complications amongst our 1.2 million people living with diabetes can be significantly reduced by intensively lowering blood glucose (sugar) levels beyond what is currently standard practice.

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, according to a joint Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) study published in the June issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.