Kidney Friends

By Richard L. Faber, PhD
Author’s Note: This article was written in stages over four decades. Each stage or section documents my medical status at the time and my evolving attitudes toward dialysis. I’ve prefaced each section with comments (in italics) written in the present.

Picking up a pen-1970

This section, written in 1970 after two years of treatments, may make dialysis seem too good to be true, but it does portray how successful the treatments were for me. Unfortunately, I was largely oblivious to the stress that home dialysis caused for my wife. She had to take care of me and our daughter, who was one year old when I began treatments.

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In 2006, more than 500,000 patients received some form of end-stage renal disease therapy in the United States, and Medicare spent nearly $23 billion to care for them, according to the U.S. Renal Data System’s 2008 Annual Data Report.

Between 2005 and 2006, the number of new ESRD cases grew 3.4 percent, which is the first time the population has grown more than 2 percent in a year since 2000, according to the USRDS report. Of the new ESRD cases, the number of new dialysis patients grew nearly 4 percent.

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BACKGROUND: End-stage renal disease is another name for kidney failure that is so advanced it can’t be reversed. There are only two treatment options for patients experiencing end-stage renal failure — dialysis or transplantation. The national kidney foundation estimates that about 350,000 people in the U.S. have end stage renal disease and about 67,000 people die of kidney failure each year. If a patient opts to have dialysis it may impose invasive limitations on his or her lifestyle because of the rigorous schedule, diet and side effects that accompany the treatment. A successful kidney transplant provides a better quality of life because it allows greater freedom and often is associated with increased energy levels and a less restricted diet. There are two types of kidney transplants, one that uses a kidney from a living donor, and one that used a kidney from a deceased donor. Because of a shortage of donor kidneys, each year only a small percentage of people who need a transplant actually receive a kidney. The wait for a donor kidney can take years.

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A new study indicates that some kidney patients who undergo hemodialysis following exposure to gadolinium contrast dyes during an MRI may be at less risk of developing nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF). The study, conducted by researchers at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, was recently published in the journal “Radiology”.

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By: Kafi Drexel

Nearly half a million Americans suffer kidney disease so severe that they have to be on dialysis, but few are pursuing options that could make treatment easier and perhaps even make them healthier. NY1 Health & Fitness reporter Kafi Drexel filed the following report.

Texas native Harvey Wells recently stopped in the Big Apple during a cross-country RV tour recently. Normally, it’s a trip that couldn’t happen. Wells suffers from kidney disease, which used to keep him in a dialysis center three times a week for four hours at a time, where machines do the work his organs can’t.

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Mark Martin has his hands full. Besides a high pressure MNC job, the hospital seems to have become second home. Thrice weekly, he takes his 63-year-old father for dialysis; each session lasts 4-5 hours. He has lost count of his waking and sleeping hours. It’s a double whammy for him — his mother was fatally struck with it two years back.

That’s what kidney disease does to families — debilitates them physically, emotionally and monetarily. Some of the patients are as young as eight years. What’s distressing is that it could have been prevented. In India, kidney disease occurs a decade earlier than in western counterparts and is gaining epidemic proportions.

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Science Centric
A new study suggests that monitoring levels of a hormone called fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF-23) may provide information crucial to the treatment of patients with kidney failure. In the 7 August New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report that patients with elevated levels of FGF-23 when beginning haemodialysis had a significantly increased risk of death within the first year of treatment, regardless of whether they had other risk factors. The study also found evidence that FGF-23 levels may differ between racial groups, which may relate to observed disparities in survival of dialysis patients.

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FRIDAY, Aug. 15 (HealthDay News) — The drug rituximab may significantly reduce kidney damage in people with a common form of kidney disease called membranous nephropathy, believed to be caused by autoimmune reactions against the kidney.

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