Nephrology News

A speaker at the Renal Physicians Association virtual meeting addressed how the COVID-19 pandemic has expanded the way social media is utilized, specifically as it pertains to innovative forms of medical education.

Pediatric patients with COVID-19 who also developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children had a higher risk for AKI and subsequent adverse outcomes, study results showed.

Similar to how emergency departments have teams ready to treat patients after cardiac arrest or stroke, a speaker argued it is equally necessary to have interventional teams for patients who develop rapid kidney failure.

For hospitalized patients who developed AKI, those who also had COVID-19 experienced faster rates of kidney function decline following discharge, regardless of baseline comorbidities or AKI severity.

Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic started, recognition of the value of telehealth – although long overdue – became clear in an environment where person-to-person contact was minimized.

Contending that the COVID-19 pandemic forced medicine to evolve by accelerating the use of telehealth, a speaker said it is critical to consider the future role of virtual care and how the best clinical outcomes can be achieved.

The inclusion of kidney health measures, as recommended by Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes, led to more accurate predictions of 10-year risk for CVD events than did standard cardiovascular risk criteria alone.

Children who were overweight and had low-level prenatal lead exposure may have worsened kidney function later in life, according to research published in Environment International.

Adding to existing evidence that shows the benefits of canagliflozin for patients with type 2 diabetes, researchers found those with “severely increased” baseline albuminuria experienced the most protective kidney effects.

Emphasizing that race is not a biological construct, but rather a social construct, a speaker contended that the “multifaceted nature” of disparities impacting outcomes for children with kidney disease must be explored.