Researchers reveal most effective treatment for common kidney disorder
Results of UK-wide clinical trial will be implemented worldwide
2013-01-09
(Press-News.org) The results of a pioneering UK-wide clinical trial that compared treatments for patients with a common type of kidney disease has found one to be significantly more effective. The results of the study, published online in The Lancet today [9 Jan], will be recommended to clinicians worldwide as the most effective approach to treating the condition.
The Medical Research Council-funded study, led by researchers from the University of Bristol's Academic Renal Unit based in Southmead Hospital, compared three treatment approaches in a type of kidney disorder known as 'membranous nephropathy'.
The condition, which leads to changes and inflammation of the structures inside the kidney that help filter wastes and fluids, is usually managed with immunosuppressive drugs but has a high risk of causing kidney failure in patients. Previous studies of the disorder, which is costly to treat (kidney failure treatments cost $40 billion in the US in 2008), show that once kidney function starts to decline, continued deterioration can be expected.
The research team, led by Professor Peter Mathieson, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, carried out a randomised controlled trial involving 108 patients with 20 per cent decline in renal function at 37 renal units across the UK. The patients were randomised to one of three treatment approaches and followed up by the team over three years.
The team evaluated results from 33 patients who were treated with prednisolone and chlorambucil, 37 patients with ciclosporin and 38 who were provided with supportive therapy alone.
They found that for patients with membranous nephropathy, six months' therapy with alternating monthly cycles of prednisolone and chlorambucil was the most effective option. This approach was shown to be the most effective in preventing further renal decline in patients with the benefits maintained over the three-year study period and thus the recommended treatment approach.
Professor Mathieson, the study's lead author and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University, said: "Kidney failure is a devastating condition that is difficult and expensive to treat and our best strategies are to aim to prevent it wherever possible by more effective treatment of the underlying kidney problems. This clinical trial took a very long time to complete and I was helped by kidney specialists, research nurses and patients in Bristol and all over the UK. The results improve the evidence-base for our treatments in this form of kidney disease."
###
The study, entitled Immunosuppression for progressive membranous nephropathy: a UK randomised controlled trial, was funded by the Medical Research Council, Novartis, the Renal Association and Kidney Research UK and is published online in The Lancet. Professor Mathieson would particularly like to thank Tracey Chapman (trial administrator) and Maria Langdon (research nurse) both based in Bristol for all their hard work and the Medical Research Council for the principal funding. END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2013-01-09
The new study analyses data from school aged children in Tanzania infected with the most common forms of worms. It was found that infection by one parasitic species actually changes the risk of catching another, over and above other risk factors.
The study is the first to look at the significance of infection with one disease as a risk for further infections (i.e. co-infection). The findings could help us better understand the importance of co-infection as a risk, and could help inform disease control strategies.
Traditionally, co-infection, where the person or ...
2013-01-09
In collaboration with the National University of Mexico, a team of Spanish researchers has analysed for the first time remains of cosmetics in the graves of prehispanic civilisations on the American continent. In the case of the Teotihuacans, these cosmetics were used as part of the after-death ritual to honour their city's most important people.
A research team from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Valencia has studied various funerary samples found in urns in the Teotihuacan archaeological site (Mexico) that date from between 200 and 500 ...
2013-01-09
AUDIO:
Melanie Hingle, Ph.D., MPH, RD, University of Arizona, discusses the effectiveness of using text messaging to engage adolescents in ‘‘conversations’’ about health using a familiar communication method -- that is...
Click here for more information.
Philadelphia, PA, January 9, 2013 – According to the Nielsen consumer research group, teens receive an average of 3,417 text messages per month (that's 114 texts per day!). Couple this with CDC's report that high school students' ...
2013-01-09
The key to giving whole wheat bread a more appetizing aroma and taste may lie in controlling the amounts of a single chemical compound that appears in the bread, which nutritionists regard as more healthful than its refined white counterpart. That's the finding of a new study in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, which opens the door to making whole wheat bakery products more appealing to millions of people.
Devin G. Peterson and colleagues explain that whole wheat flour includes all three layers of the grain — bran, germ and endosperm — while refined flour ...
2013-01-09
Scientists are reporting development of chemical modules that can reproduce, on an "unprecedented" molecular level, changes and interactions that occur in natural populations of plants and animals, including those of hunting and being hunted for food, conducting mutually beneficial relationships and competing for resources. The report on these new "predator-prey biochemical oscillators," which could become building blocks for molecular machines and computers, appears in ACS Nano.
Yannick Rondelez and Teruo Fujii explain that just as plants and animals interact in complex ...
2013-01-09
This press release is available in German.
Aggregations of the red and black colored firebugs are ubiquitous under linden trees in Central Europe, where the bugs can reach astounding population densities. While these insects have no impact on humans, their African, Asian, and American relatives, the cotton stainers, are serious agricultural pests of cotton and other Malvaceous plants. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, recently discovered that these bugs need bacterial symbionts to survive on cotton seeds as their sole food source. ...
2013-01-09
To plant food, insect repellant and other homespun uses for spent coffee grounds, scientists are adding an application that could make the gunk left over from brewing coffee a valuable resource for production of dietary supplements. Their new report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry concludes that used coffee grounds are a rich source of healthful antioxidant substances.
Maria-Paz de Peña and colleagues explain that people around the world drink millions of cups of coffee every day, generating about 20 million tons of used grounds annually. Although some ...
2013-01-09
URBANA – What are you doing to keep your relationship alive? A University of Illinois study highlights the importance of five relationship maintenance strategies that couples can use to preserve or improve the quality of an intimate relationship.
"Relationships are like cars in that you have do certain things to keep them running, especially when your goal is to strengthen and preserve your bond with your partner," said Brian Ogolsky, a U of I professor of human and community development.
To determine which factors are the most important in promoting healthy relationships, ...
2013-01-09
This press release is available in German.
Whether a quantum object behaves like a wave or like a particle depends (according to the Copenhagen interpretation) on the choice of measurement apparatus used for observing the system, and therefore on the type of measurement performed.
Anton Zeilinger's team of physicists at the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences has recently taken this phenomenon further than ever. Whether a certain photon behaves like a particle or like a wave depends on the measurement performed on a second photon. In the ...
2013-01-09
Mention magnets, and most people think of trivial applications of those pieces of metal, like holding family photos and reminder notes on the refrigerator. An article on magnets in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), however, focuses on the critical role magnets play in the real world and the search for new materials to make them. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
In the article, C&EN Senior Correspondent Mitch Jacoby explains that magnets are crucial to an enormous number of ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Researchers reveal most effective treatment for common kidney disorder
Results of UK-wide clinical trial will be implemented worldwide
