Biomarkers for Cancer of the Kidney

Medscape is reporting new research points to several biomarkers (molecules that can be tested for in relationship to a disease) have been found which may predict the odds of survival in renal cell cancer.

The data reviewed is derived from the TARGET study Treatment Approaches in Renal Cancer Global Evaluation Trial.

"Carol Peña, PhD, associate director for clinical cancer biomarkers at Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, and colleagues conducted an analysis on a subset of the patients enrolled in TARGET to evaluate the relation between biomarker levels and outcomes.

Sleep apnea and Transplantation

Health day has reported that patients with sleep apnoea are at increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. Excerpt below

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"Kidney transplant patients with sleep apnea are at increased risk for high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, Hungarian researchers say.

Sirolimus for Polycystic Kidney Disease

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New treatment options for polycystic kidney disease do not come along very often. The nature of the disease is such that treatment is inherently difficult as the pathophysiology is incompletely understood.

Despite that various methods are currently being investigated. One such is the drug sirolimus, which  has been mentioned before. More recently however a pilot study performed in adult polycystic kidney disease patients has added further hope that sirolimus may one day be used routinely in this disease.

Preventing Repeat Hospitalization in Dialysis

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Dialysis patients are known to have greater rates of hospitalization as compared to other patients. The cause for this is believed to be multifactorial. The present study by Chan et. al. looks at possible factors which may reduces the rate of hospitalization of dialysis patients after an initial admission.

The population studied was quite large with over 126,000 dialysis patients involved. The premise of the study was that the management strategy at the time of first discharge was a significant contributor to the time to readmission of the patient.  The Primary outcome of the investigation was therefore readmission of the patient within 30 days.