Friday, April 15, 2022

Future treatments for kidney failure

 The future treatments of kidney failure are just around the corner, where it seems they have been for a long time. So it's perhaps appropriate that this optimistic look at emerging technologies was published on April 1, but I think that's just an accident.

Beyond kidney dialysis and transplantation: what’s on the horizon? by Hamid Rabb, Kyungho Lee, and Chirag R. Parikh, J Clin Invest. 2022 Apr 1; 132(7): e159308., Published online 2022 Apr 1. doi: 10.1172/JCI159308

"There are currently over 750,000 patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in the United States. Globally, 2.6 million patients receive renal replacement therapy with either dialysis or a kidney transplant, which is estimated to double in number by 2030 (1). Kidney care was revolutionized by the invention of the dialysis machine in 1943 by Willem Kolff and the subsequent development of the arteriovenous fistula in 1960 by Belding Scribner. The first successful human kidney transplantation was performed in 1954 by Joseph Murray, teaming with John Merrill, and has since become the treatment of choice for patients with ESRD. Although there have been only incremental innovations since that time, recent exciting developments in kidney research have the potential to transform treatment beyond dialysis and transplantation. Here, we highlight five emerging approaches for ESRD."

They go on to briefly discuss:

  • Wearable and bioartificial kidneys
  • Kidney-on-a-chip
  • Growing a new kidney from stem cell–derived organoids
  • Immune tolerance protocols for kidney transplants
  • Xenotransplantation

No comments: