Kidney Disease

The National Kidney Foundation announced that “out of an abundance of caution” in relation to COVID-19 it will change its 2020 Spring Clinical Meetings, planned for March 26-29 in New Orleans, to a live-virtual meeting.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — The timing is right for the kidney care community to advance the treatment and potential cure of ESKD, according to a speaker here at the Southwest Nephrology Annual Conference and Cardio Renal Metabolic Annual Conference.

Coinciding with the start of National Kidney Month, Fresenius Kidney Care has launched an online resource for patients and their caregivers, according to a press release from the company.

Exposure to a higher amount of particulate matter air pollution was associated with an increased level of albuminuria, as well as a greater risk for chronic kidney disease, according to recently published findings.

A number of high-profile, but ultimately weakly associated, risks have hounded proton pump inhibitors for years. The mainstream media caught on to research that linked the drugs to scary conditions such as dementia, myocardial infarction and even malignancies causing some patients to discontinue them entirely. However, new research over the last several years has either disproven those previous claims or found the associations to be extremely weak. How can the gastroenterology community rebuild the image of PPIs?

Each year, the National Kidney Foundation’s Spring Clinical Meetings engages speakers from across the country to share the most current developments in nephrology. Topics are selected with the purpose of presenting health care providers, such as nephrologists, general internists, pharmacists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, social workers or dieticians, with the latest insights into caring for patients with kidney disease to better their practice.

Nephrology Practice Solutions, a subsidiary of DaVita Inc., is now affiliated with Partners in Nephrology and Endocrinology, a large Pittsburgh-based physician practice with 34 physicians and advanced practitioners.

Less than half of currently used kidney disease quality metrics are “highly valid,” according to a structured metric evaluation review conducted by the American Society of Nephrology Quality Committee and subsequently published in JASN. This finding led Mallika L. Mendu, MD, MBA, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and colleagues to “advocate for refining existing measures and developing new metrics that better reflect the spectrum of kidney care delivery.”

High soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor levels were associated with acute kidney injury and may be a pathogenic factor for the condition, according to a study.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among patients with chronic kidney disease.1 There is a progressive increase in mortality risk with declining eGFR below 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 to 75 mL/min/1.73 m2, after risk adjustment for traditional CVD risk factors.2