Dialysis News and Research

Latest Dialysis News and Research

DonateLife Week raises awareness about organ and tissue donation

More than 11,000 Australian lives in the past 10 years have been saved thanks to the generosity of organ and tissue donors and their families.

29 Jul 2019

Now they owe $0 — half-million-dollar dialysis bill canceled

Fresenius, one of the two largest dialysis providers in the U.S., has agreed to waive a $524,600.17 bill for a man who received 14 weeks of dialysis at a clinic in Montana.

26 Jul 2019

Sleeve gastrectomy rates are increasing among U.S. patients with kidney failure

A recent analysis of trends in weight loss surgery among patients with kidney failure and obesity reveals that sleeve gastrectomy is safe, and its use has increased in recent years.

26 Jul 2019

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Cue the drug price debate

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Finance Committee this week unveiled a sweeping proposal that seeks to lower prescription drug prices for the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

25 Jul 2019

Noninvasive portable device can accurately measure patients’ hydration levels

Noninvasive device could benefit patients with kidney disease, congestive heart failure, or dehydration.

24 Jul 2019

Study examines role of plastic exposure in irregular heart rhythms, arrhythmias

Calling an ambulance during an emergency, emailing a breaking news or journal article before a 5 p.m. deadline and maintaining conditions during the fifth week of a 6-week lab study, without altering the light or temperature, requires electricity and translates into time, money and lives

22 Jul 2019

How the Eastern Cherokee took control of their health care

Light pours through large windows and glass ceilings of the Cherokee Indian Hospital onto a fireplace, a waterfall and murals.

22 Jul 2019

Racial and ethnic differences in initiating home dialysis narrowed over time, analysis reveals

A recent analysis reveals that as home dialysis increased from 2005 to 2013 among U.S. patients with kidney failure, racial/ethnic differences in initiating home dialysis narrowed.

19 Jul 2019

Initiating dialysis at higher level of kidney function linked to lower patient survival

A recent analysis of U.S. data over 2 decades indicates that children with kidney failure are being started on dialysis at higher levels of kidney function. Initiating dialysis at a higher level of kidney function was linked to lower patient survival, however.

19 Jul 2019

Living-donor liver transplant offers advantages over deceased-donor, research finds

Living-donor liver transplant offers numerous advantages over deceased-donor transplant, including better three-year survival rates for patients and lower costs, according to new research from the UPMC Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

12 Jul 2019

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Could the ACA really go away?

The Affordable Care Act was back in court again this week — this time before a three-judge panel at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

11 Jul 2019

Obese patients with Type 1 diabetes could safely receive robotic pancreas transplant

For patients with Type 1 diabetes who don't respond well to insulin or have other serious medical complications caused by their disease, pancreas transplantation offers hope for a cure.

11 Jul 2019

Using Obamacare authority, Trump aims to shift dialysis care to patients’ homes

President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a bold plan to improve care to patients with kidney disease, which he claimed would save thousands of lives each year and billions of dollars for taxpayers.

10 Jul 2019

Chronic kidney disease patients are excluded from clinical trials

Kidney diseases affect 850 million people worldwide, a figure twice as high as that of diabetes. Yet patients with chronic kidney disease are still being excluded from clinical trials.

10 Jul 2019

Researchers identify possible role of polyphosphate in dialysis-related amyloidosis

Long-term dialysis treatment is tough on the body in many ways, but one of the most serious complications is dialysis-related amyloidosis, a disease characterized by abnormal buildup of protein aggregates—called amyloid fibrils—in joints, tissues and organs.

8 Jul 2019

Functional decline highly prevalent in older adults initiating dialysis

A new study published in CJASN found that functional decline within the first 6 months after initiating dialysis was highly prevalent in older adults at 17 centers in Netherlands, and the risk was higher in those with advanced age and frailty.

28 Jun 2019

In secret, seniors discuss ‘rational suicide’

Ten residents slipped away from their retirement community one Sunday afternoon for a covert meeting in a grocery store cafe. They aimed to answer a taboo question: When they feel they have lived long enough, how can they carry out their own swift and peaceful death?

25 Jun 2019

Scientists develop new class of drugs to treat hereditary kidney disease

Scientists from the University of Sheffield are part of an international collaboration to develop a new class of drugs to treat a common genetic kidney disease which is a major cause of kidney failure.

18 Jun 2019

Miracle machine makes heroic rescues — and leaves patients in limbo

The latest miracle machine in modern medicine — whose use has skyrocketed in recent years — is saving people from the brink of death: adults whose lungs have been ravaged by the flu; a trucker who was trapped underwater in a crash; a man whose heart had stopped working for an astonishing seven hours.

18 Jun 2019

Urinary DKK3 can improve prediction of AKI

A new renal biomarker was presented at the ERA-EDTA Congress last year: that shows that urinary DKK3 might help to identify patients who are at risk of progressive chronic kidney disease.

17 Jun 2019