(Press-News.org) ROCHESTER, Minn. — More than 4 million people worldwide have end-stage kidney disease that requires hemodialysis, a treatment in which a machine filters waste from the blood. Hemodialysis is a precursor to kidney transplant. To prepare for it, patients typically undergo surgery to connect an artery and a vein in the arm, creating an arteriovenous fistula (AVF) that allows blood to flow through the vein for treatment. However, AVF fails about 60 percent of the time due to vein narrowing. This is a major barrier to effective treatment.
Mayo Clinic researchers found that transplanting patients' own stem cells from fat cells into the vein often helped prevent inflammation and vein narrowing. This could help millions of people with end-stage kidney disease tolerate dialysis longer, extending the time before they require a kidney transplant.
That is because these adult stem cells called mesenchymal stem cells secrete healing growth factors that appear to be effective for certain patients with an AVF, according to Sanjay Misra, M.D., a Mayo Clinic interventional radiologist and senior author of the study published in Science Translational Medicine.
"Mesenchymal stem cells have anti-inflammatory properties," he says. "Inflammation is a significant problem, especially in Western society, because it's a hallmark of a lot of medical problems: heart disease, vascular disease, hypertension, high cholesterol and cancer. They are all driven by inflammation."
Improving kidney disease treatment options
In this study, 21 participants received AVFs as part of a phase I clinical trial. Eleven participants were injected with their own fat-derived mesenchymal stem cells before AVF surgery; 10 were part of the control group. The AVFs healed faster and were more durable in most of those who received the stem cells. However, not everyone responded to them.
"We were surprised by these differences in response to the mesenchymal stem cells. This spurred us to delve further into our research and include preclinical models and RNA sequencing technology," says lead author Sreenivasulu Kilari, Ph.D.
The researchers identified specific anti-inflammatory gene factors in those who responded well to the stem cells. They say these genetic biomarkers could help predict which patients are most likely to benefit from this stem cell application and help inform personalized treatment options. The researchers hope to garner more information through larger clinical trials.
"This approach has the potential to improve outcomes for millions of patients with kidney failure, reduce healthcare costs and inform new clinical guidelines for dialysis access management if validated in larger clinical trials," says Dr. Misra.
This research was supported by Michael S. and Mary Sue Shannon through the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics.
Review the study for a complete list of authors, disclosures and funding.
Additional resources:
Stem cell research to improve hemodialysis
###
About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news.
END
Stem cells may offer new hope for end-stage kidney disease treatment
2025-09-24
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Rice sociologist’s journey from simple curiosity to NSF-backed research reveals how physical infrastructure shapes inequality
2025-09-24
As a graduate student living in New Haven, Connecticut, Elizabeth Roberto said she couldn’t stop wondering why certain neighborhoods seemed connected while others were quietly walled off.
“There were these places where the roads just stopped,” Roberto recalled. “Like they were meant to go somewhere — but didn’t.”
It was the kind of everyday thing the average person might drive past without a second thought. But for Roberto, it sparked a question that would stay with her for years: What happens when barriers separate people — not ...
Discontinuation of semaglutide among older adults with diabetes in the US and Japan
2025-09-24
About The Study: In this binational study of older adults with diabetes, nearly 6 in 10 U.S. adults and 3 in 10 Japanese adults discontinued glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) within 12 months of initiating injectable semaglutide. Patients with established cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease had higher discontinuation rates in both countries, which is troublesome given the substantial clinical benefit these high-risk individuals would be expected to derive from GLP-1RA therapy.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Dhruv S. Kazi, MD, MSc, MS, email dkazi@bidmc.harvard.edu.
To ...
Measles vaccination coverage after a post-elimination outbreak
2025-09-24
About The Study: In this repeated cross-sectional study of 149,000 children in a large central Ohio primary care network during the 20 months after outbreak onset, all measures of measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) coverage remained well below the 93% herd immunity threshold. These persistent, population-wide immunity gaps suggest the need for sustained, equity-focused public health strategies to maintain measles elimination.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Rosemary A. Martoma, ...
Hospital price markup and outcomes of major elective operations
2025-09-24
About The Study: This cross-sectional study found that considerable variation in price markup exists across hospitals and that high-markup hospitals demonstrated both lower quality and value of care. These findings underscore that high-markup hospitals represent a key initial target for national policy efforts targeting pricing regulation, transparency, and quality improvement.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Peyman Benharash, MD, email pbenharash@mednet.ucla.edu.
To access the embargoed study: Visit ...
Early changes during brain development may hold the key to autism and schizophrenia
2025-09-24
Researchers at the University of Exeter have created a detailed temporal map of chemical changes to DNA through development and aging of the human brain, offering new insights into how conditions such as autism and schizophrenia may arise.
The team studied epigenetic changes - chemical tags on our DNA that control how genes are switched on or off. These changes are crucial in regulating the expression of genes, guiding brain cells to develop and specialise correctly.
One important mechanism, called DNA methylation, ...
Genetic screening technique could enhance CAR-T therapies for multiple myeloma and other cancers
2025-09-24
Researchers from Mass General Brigham and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have identified genetic modifications that can improve the efficacy of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell treatment — an immunotherapy that uses modified patient T cells to target cancer. The study used CRISPR screening to pinpoint genes that influenced T cell function and survival in culture and in a preclinical model of multiple myeloma. Their results and technique, published in Nature, could lead to T cell-based immunotherapies for cancer.
“We ...
Researchers at the Josep Carreras Institute describe for the first time the delicate balance of longevity
2025-09-24
Recent studies suggest that the steady rise in life expectancy observed over the past 200 years has now stagnated. Data indicate that a limit has been reached, and that medical and healthcare advances no longer affect longevity in developed countries as they did in previous decades. Today, ageing itself, rather than disease, is the real frontier of human longevity. But what exactly is ageing? And can it be addressed in the same way as a disease?
A team led by Dr Manel Esteller, Head of the Cancer Epigenetics group at the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, has just ...
Majority of US children enroll in Medicaid, many face coverage gaps by age 18
2025-09-24
Embargoed for release: Wednesday, September 24, 2025, 11:00 AM ET
Key points:
By their 18th birthday, 61% of U.S. children have relied on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and 42% have experienced gaps in coverage, according to estimates from a microsimulation model.
Disruptions to insurance coverage were more common among children covered by Medicaid or CHIP at birth in states that did not expand their Medicaid adult programs. States that set the most restrictive income eligibility thresholds for children under Medicaid and CHIP saw the highest share of coverage disruptions.
The ...
“High-markup” hospitals are overwhelmingly for-profit, located in large metropolitan areas and have the worst patient outcomes
2025-09-24
Hospitals with the widest difference between the cost of their services and what they charge patients and their insurance carriers are mostly for-profit, investor owned and located in large metropolitan areas. They also have significantly worse patient outcomes compared with lower-cost hospitals, new UCLA research finds.
These “high-markup hospitals” (HMH), which comprised about 10% of the total the researchers examined, charged up to 17 times the true cost of care. By contrast, markups at other hospitals were an average of three times the cost of care.
The findings will be published September ...
Ancient Plant, new insights: IPK research team reveals the mosaic origin of barley
2025-09-24
The research team conducted an in-depth study of the evolution and domestication of barley (Hordeum vulgare). They focused on so-called haplotypes - sections of DNA that are inherited together and act like genetic “building blocks.” To trace barley’s history, the scientists analysed the genetic material of 682 barley accessions from the IPK genebank and 23 archaeological barley finds, including ancient charred grains up to 6,000 years old.
The team specifically studied 380 wild barley samples from regions across western and central Asia, and compared them with 302 samples ...