Active clinical trials for "Kidney Failure, Chronic"

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), which means that it is important to find out risk factors of CVD in order to prevent or treat it. In recent years, there has been more and more recognition of a very high prevalence of CV calcification in the ESRD population. Many observational cohort studies have shown that CV calcification in these patients can predict mortality, CV mortality and morbidity. Electrolyte imbalance is easily found in the ESRD patients which may result in vessel calcification. Calcification leads to arterial stenosis and increasing arterial stiffness and then heart afterload, both contribute to the development of CVD. Besides, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia pave the way for a chronic, immune-mediated vascular inflammation and cardiovascular disease. These factors are prevalent in ESRD patients, which would also cause arterial stiffness. Arterial stiffness and stenosis would increase the risk of CV events and mortality. Aortic pulse wave velocity is strongly associated with the presence and extent of atherosclerosis and constitutes a forceful marker and predictor of cardiovascular risk. At the same time, high prevalence of peripheral artery occlusion disease (PAOD) should also be found while arterial stiffness and stenosis, which would increase the condition of infection and gangrene. Thus, life safety and quality would be influenced severely and early detection might prevent future amputation. Uremic patients also have a higher risk for metabolic syndrome. Therefore, more studies to evaluate the condition of arterial stiffness and PAOD, especially in HD patients, are needed for future management and preventions of CV related morbidity and mortality.

To conduct a pragmatic randomized clinical trial in which the researchers will determine the mortality impact of a protocol whereby all hemodialysis patients receive an oral, protein-based nutritional supplement during the dialysis procedure as compared to the existing nutritional protocol whereby only hemodialysis patients with serum albumin below 3.5 g/dL and incident hemodialysis patients during the first months of care receive an oral, intradialytic protein-based nutritional supplement during the dialysis procedure.

The purpose of this study is to learn if changing from Tacrolimus to Everolimus will improve cognitive function by having less effect on brain blood flow.

A myriad of sexual problems affect men and women with chronic kidney disease (CKD), including decreased libido, erectile dysfunction, dysmenorrhea, and infertility. Menstrual abnormalities are common in CKD and many women are an-ovulatory . Causes of sexual dysfunction in CKD include hormonal alterations along with vascular, neurologic, psychogenic, and other factors, such as medications, contribute to the development of sexual dysfunction . Sexual dysfunction in females is mainly due to hormonal factors and manifests mainly as menstrual irregularities, amenorrhea, lack of vaginal lubrication, and failure to conceive.

End stage renal disease (ESRD) is the last stage (stage 5) of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Abnormalities of cognitive function and high levels of depression or anxiety incidence are characteristic of hemodialysis patients. In this research project, the investigators subject in ESRD patients starting hemodialysis as the carrier. Based on the longitudinal research design, using multimodal neuroimaging data，combining with the interact relationship between changes of brain morphology, the dysfunction of resting-state and-task state with cognitive impairment and abnormal emotions.Establish brain structure-function change model associated with dialysis progression, Explore imaging markers of central and disease development characteristics in ESRD patients. the investigators attempt to clarify the core mechanism of kidney-brain axis damage, thus provide evidence for early cognitive-behavioral therapy to CKD patient.

The burden of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) is increasing worldwide. Although kidney transplantation is the most cost-effective renal replacement therapy, dialysis is still the main way to treat ESRD patients due to the limited kidney donor, with approximately 89% of such dialysis patients receive hemodialysis (HD) and the remainder receive peritoneal dialysis (PD). This distribution of dialysis modality, however, varies widely by health jurisdiction. For instance, more than 97% of dialysis patients are treated with HD in Japan, but more than 50% treated with PD in Mexico. Evidence comparing the two modalities suggests that mortality risks may be comparable, but all evidence come from observational study and there is no randomized controlled trial to compare patient survival between PD and HD due to patients enrollment issue.More importantly, for most health care systems, such as United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Indonesia and China, PD is less expensive than HD. It is possible, then, that a greater global utilization of PD might improve access to renal replacement therapy in less advanced economies. The investigators have conducted a prospective, randomized, parallel, open-label, multi-center, non-inferiority trial to evaluate health-related quality of life (HRQoL) with PD versus conventional in-center HD in incident ESKD patients. A total of 1082 ESKD patients were randomly assigned to PD or conventional in-center HD, and 235 patients enrolled in stage 1 with complete measures of the "Burden of Kidney Disease" at both baseline and 48 weeks and 668 patients enrolled in stage 2 were included in analysis. However, this trial was designed to evaluate quality of life between PD and HD and all patients were follow-up 48 weeks. Therefore, in this observational cohort study, the investigators will perform extended follow-up for participants including in analysis . Our primary objective is to evaluate the association of dialysis modality (PD and HD) with all-cause mortality in ESKD patients. The investigators also explore the impact of PD and HD on major cardiovascular event composite (MACE), a composite outcome of MACE and all-cause death, hospitalized myocardial infarction, hospitalized stroke and hospitalized heart failure, healthy utility, dialysis cost, activity of daily living, and changes of RRF, hemoglobin, and other biochemical parameters.

the aim of the research is to determine the degree of vascular calcification in chronic kidney disease and post-transplant and whether there is a correlation with the level of serum sclerostin.

High hepcidin concentrations indicate that iron is blocked from secretion from the reservoir. Hepcidin may be useful in prediction functional iron utilization in renal failure patients. Hepcidin is also associated with chronic renal failure and residual renal function in dialysis patients. Recent studies have shown that hepcidin is a potential marker of impaired renal function in a rat model of chronic nephropathy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between preoperative hepcidin levels and the incidence of success rate of kidney transplantation in patients with end-stage renal failure undergoing kidney transplantation surgery. The study is a prospective single-group observational study that analyzes hepcidin as a biomarker.

Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of morbidity and death in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The mechanisms linking impaired renal function and increased risk for cardiovascular diseases, however, remain elusive. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) is a heterogeneous group of non-coding transcripts longer than 200 nucleotides. While the roles of lncRNAs in human diseases including cancer and neurodegenerative disorders are beginning to emerge, it remains unclear how lncRNA regulation contributes to cardiovascular complications in patients with renal dysfunction. In this proposal, the investigators seek to apply next-generation sequencing technology to investigate circulating lncRNA expression in control subjects and in patients with CKD and ESRD. The investigators will test the hypothesis that circulating lncRNA expression signature can reflect the underlying kidney disease states in patients with CKD and ESRD. A gene co-expression network analysis will be conducted to identify lncRNAs that are functionally involved in the pathogenesis of CKD and ESRD. Next, the investigators will identify circulating lncRNAs that are indicative of cardiovascular dysfunction in ESRD patients. Finally, the investigators propose to test the hypothesis that circulating lncRNAs can be novel prognostic biomarkers to predict cardiovascular outcomes and renal function progression in CKD patients. The results from these experiments will lead to better understanding of how circulating lncRNAs contribute to uremic cardiovascular complications and renal function progression.

Chronic allograft injury is the leading cause of graft loss in renal transplantation. The shortage of available kidneys for transplantation has reached crisis levels with increasing numbers of waiting list mortalities. Strategies to prolong graft survival are urgently needed. The pediatric and young adult transplant population is one in which repeat transplantation is inevitable and therefore, this group is one who will especially benefit from intervention to prolong graft survival. The hypothesis of this proposal is that subclinical viral infection is a modifiable risk factor in the pathogenesis of chronic allograft injury. The young age of the proposed study population is an ideal one to evaluate this objective due to the high prevalence of seronegative recipients. The studies outlined will determine the temporal relationship betWeween subclinical viremia, renal allograft infection and allograft injury. This will be the first prospective study in renal transplant recipients to systematically monitor subclinical viral infection both in peripheral blood and in the renal allograft with concurrent quantitative measures of renal function, allograft fibrosis, and innate immune activation. The investigators have chosen these 3 outcomes because they evaluate a spectrum of renal allograft injury and represent different stages - from early to late - in the pathophysiology that leads to renal allograft dysfunction. In addition, the role of virus specific T cell immune responses in the control of subclinical viral infection and associated allograft injury will be determined. These data are critical as they will provide insights into the pathogenesis of injury and will guide development of interventions strategies. Importantly, the current treatment strategies for viral disease do not prevent subclinical viral infection. Thus, the results of this study may identify that prevention, prophylaxis and/or treatment of subclinical viral replication as a long term strategy to prevent chronic allograft injury and prolong graft survival.