(Press-News.org) MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (11/03/2023) — Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is a rare kidney disorder that affects children and adults, and can lead to kidney failure. New findings from a team led by the University of Minnesota Medical School show patients with FSGS who were treated with the medication sparsentan experienced improved kidney function—making it a potential new treatment option for the disorder.
The research, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests sparsentan may provide kidney protection by significantly reducing excess protein in urine — known as proteinuria, a proven indicator of kidney damage.
“FSGS is a frustrating disease for children to deal with and affects their quality of life,” said Michelle Rheault, MD, professor at the U of M Medical School and pediatric nephrologist with M Health Fairview. “We're committed to offering our patients with kidney disease access to new treatments through our clinical trial options.”
Clinically, reduction of proteinuria and delaying time to kidney failure are critically important for patients. FSGS patients in this study who were treated with sparsentan through two years of treatment had lower protein in their urine and were more likely to achieve complete remission compared to patients treated with irbesartan, the current standard treatment.
Although the endpoint for glomerular filtration rate—which measures how well kidneys filter blood—was not achieved after two years of treatment, other improvements were seen, including:
Significant proteinuria reduction
Higher rates of partial or complete remission
Lower rates of reaching end-stage kidney disease
These findings suggest sparsentan could be a potential new treatment option for FSGS. Clinically, reduction of proteinuria and delaying time to kidney failure are critically important for patients.
Further analysis is ongoing to determine which patients with FSGS may benefit the most from sparsentan.
This research was funded by Travere Therapeutics—the maker of sparsentan.
###
About the University of Minnesota Medical School
The University of Minnesota Medical School is at the forefront of learning and discovery, transforming medical care and educating the next generation of physicians. Our graduates and faculty produce high-impact biomedical research and advance the practice of medicine. We acknowledge that the U of M Medical School, both the Twin Cities campus and Duluth campus, is located on traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of the Dakota and the Ojibwe, and scores of other Indigenous people, and we affirm our commitment to tribal communities and their sovereignty as we seek to improve and strengthen our relations with tribal nations. For more information about the U of M Medical School, please visit med.umn.edu.
END
U of M Medical School research team finds novel drug improves outcomes for patients with rare kidney disorder
2023-11-03
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Opioid disorder treatment: first three weeks forecast success
2023-11-03
NEW YORK, NY--A newly developed prediction model may be able to calculate the risk of opioid relapse among individuals in the early stages of medication treatment—as early as three weeks into therapy.
“Medication treatment for opioid use disorder, contrary to popular belief, is very effective and likely to succeed if patients achieve early treatment success,” says Sean X. Luo, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, who ...
Study links childhood trauma to COVID-19 deaths, hospitalizations
2023-11-03
People who endured childhood adversity, like abuse or neglect, were more likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID-19 in adulthood, a new University of Pittsburgh study found. Specifically, higher self-reported childhood adversity was linked to 12-25% higher odds of COVID-19 hospitalization and mortality.
While age, sex, ethnicity, health, and sociodemographic factors have been related to such outcomes throughout the pandemic, this was the first study finding a link between these COVID-19 outcomes ...
America’s low-carbon transition could improve employment opportunities for all
2023-11-03
The USA is likely to see consistent job growth from the transition to net zero, but the gains will be unevenly distributed, shows a new analysis.
The analysis, conducted by Imperial College London researchers and published today in Nature Climate Change, shows that some states will need new policies to ensure a ‘just’ transition.
The USA, alongside many countries, is planning for a low-carbon future, where energy production releases little to no carbon dioxide and what is released is removed from the atmosphere, creating net-zero carbon emissions. This has been backed by new policies, including the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which includes large investment ...
Expanding pharmacists’ role for patients with hypertension could prevent 15 million heart attacks and save $1.1 trillion over 30 years, VCU-led study finds
2023-11-03
RICHMOND, Va. (Nov. 3, 2023) — If pharmacists had a larger role in prescribing medications to control blood pressure, they could prevent more than 15 million heart attacks, nearly 8 million strokes and more than 4 million cases each of angina and heart failure in the U.S. over 30 years, according to a new Virginia Commonwealth University-led study.
The study, “Cost-Effectiveness of Pharmacist Prescribing for Managing Hypertension in the United States,” which published Friday in JAMA Network Open, details how ...
Black and white adults have similar health care expenditure levels in racially and economically integrated communities
2023-11-03
Differences in health care expenditures between Black and white adults vary substantially with the local level of racial and economic integration, and tend to be low or nonexistent in highly integrated communities, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
For their study, the researchers compared health care expenditures for a nationally representative sample of Black and white adults in census tracts across the United States. They found that, at the same level of health, health ...
Effect of a novel multicomponent intervention to improve patient access to kidney transplant and living kidney donation
2023-11-03
About The Study: A novel multicomponent intervention designed to target several barriers that prevent eligible patients from completing key steps toward receiving a kidney transplant did not significantly increase the rate of completed steps in this randomized clinical trial that included 20,375 patients from 26 chronic kidney disease programs. Improving access to transplantation remains a global priority that requires substantial effort.
Authors: Amit X. Garg, M.D., Ph.D., of McMaster ...
Vacuum in optical cavity can change material’s magnetic state without laser excitation
2023-11-03
Researchers in Germany and the USA have produced the first theoretical demonstration that the magnetic state of an atomically thin material, α-RuCl3, can be controlled solely by placing it into an optical cavity. Crucially, the cavity vacuum fluctuations alone are sufficient to change the material’s magnetic order from a zigzag antiferromagnet into a ferromagnet. The team’s work has been published in npj Computational Materials.
A recent theme in material physics research has been the use of intense laser light to modify the properties ...
Charged “molecular beasts” the basis for new compounds
2023-11-03
Developing new ways to break and reform chemical bonds is one of the main tasks of basic chemical research. “When a bond in a charged molecule is broken, the result is often a chemically ‘aggressive’ fragment, which we call a reactive fragment. These fragments are difficult to control using established methods of chemical synthesis. You can think of them as untamed beasts that attack anything in their path. In a mass spectrometer, there are many ways to break certain bonds and generate fragments,” says Dr Warneke, describing the processes in mass spectrometers. According ...
BU researcher awarded funds to increase, improve behavioral health care for underserved children, adolescents, young adults
2023-11-03
(Boston)—Carryl P. Navalta, PhD, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has received a two-year, $476,194 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for his research, “Project EDUCATE” (Education to Deliver and Utilize Child and Adolescent Treatment Effectively).
Project EDUCATE will identify and train mental health counseling students. The student trainees will be placed in community-based facilities in the greater Boston area that serve medically underserved children, adolescents and young adults with diverse race or ethnicity, culture, language and service needs.
“The ...
SwRI-led Lucy mission shows Dinkinesh asteroid is actually a binary
2023-11-03
SAN ANTONIO — November 3, 2023 —New images captured by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft confirmed that the small main belt asteroid Dinkinesh is a binary, two asteroids that orbit a common center of mass. The SwRI-led mission will now fly by 11 asteroids in its 12-year mission to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids. Dinkinesh was meant to be the first asteroid that Lucy flew by but ended up being the first two.
“Dinkinesh really did live up to its name; this is marvelous,” said Lucy Principal Investigator Dr. Hal Levison, of SwRI’s ...