Active clinical trials for "Kidney Diseases"

The study will be conducted at Assiut University Hospital. Eligible subjects will be screened for vascular calcification by Doppler ultrasound examination. A correation between the level of serum Osteopontin (OPN) level and the extent of vascular calcification will be evaluated.

This study will evaluate the cost-effectiveness of unplanned dialysis (peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis) in chronic kidney disease (CKD) during the first year of therapy in a single center.

This is a retrospective observational study drawing on data from the Brigham and Women's Home Hospital database. Sociodemographic and clinic data from a training cohort were used to train a machine learning algorithm to predict patient deterioration throughout a patient's admission. This algorithm was then validated in a validation cohort.

Several studies revealed a direct relationship between the severity of periodontal inflammation and CRP (NHANES III, Dumitriu HT et al, 1998). In patients without any other source of inflammation but PDD, proper dental treatment of the disease decreased CRP to normal levels (Dumitriu H.T. et al., 1998; D'Aiuto F. et al, 2004; Borawski J. et al., 2007) Moreover, a direct link between high levels of CRP and atherosclerotic complications has been found in studies conducted both in general population (Ridker PM, et al., 1998; Koenig W, et al., 1999) and in HD subjects (Westhuyzen J, et al., 2000; Iseki K., et al., 1999; Zimmermann J, et al. 1998).

Hypothesis: Free light chain (FLC) removal haemodialysis will increase the rate of renal recovery in patients with cast nephropathy, severe renal failure and de novo multiple myeloma. This study will evaluate patients with multiple myeloma and severe renal failure treated with KIDNEY Therapy (previously called SUPRA HFR) to remove free light chains.

Aims: The investigators' primary objective is to assess both perceived and actual disease knowledge in local pre-dialysis Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients. The investigators hypothesize that actual disease knowledge is poorer than perceived. As the secondary objectives, the investigators will also assess the HRQoL and examine the association between level of knowledge and HRQoL in pre-dialysis CKD patients. The investigators hypothesize that HRQoL of pre-dialysis CKD patients is poorer than that of the general population while pre-dialysis CKD patients with greater disease knowledge have a better HRQoL than those with poorer knowledge. Methodology: A survey was developed to assess both perceived and actual knowledge on five aspects - general knowledge, nephrotoxic medications, diet restrictions, symptoms of CKD and its complications and renal replacement therapy (RRT) options. For the assessment of HRQoL, the following questionnaires will be used - Kidney Disease Quality of Life-Short Form (KDQOL-SF) version 1.3, EuroQoL 5 Dimensions (EQ-5D), Family Functioning Measure (FFM), and Oslo-3 Social Support Scale (OSS-3). All study questionnaires will be provided in 3 main languages - English, Chinese and Malay. A standardized data collection form was developed to retrospectively collect demographic and clinical information from the patients' electronic medical records and patient charts. Descriptive statistics will be used to report all results.

A new study have shown that high night time blood pressure (BP) and/or non-dipping (lack of fall in BP during night time) is a strong predictor for the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality in patients with hypertension. Three factors seem to affect the night time BP: chronic kidney disease, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and the way ambulatory blood pressure is monitored. Hypothesis: Central 24-h blood pressure monitoring is a better way of monitoring blood pressure than conventional peripheral monitoring. In hypertension, chronic kidney disease and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) the night time blood pressure is elevated, and is OSA the elevation is correlated to the severity of OSA. In OSA the kidneys handling of salt and water is disturbed. In OSA there is disturbances in hormonal balance.

It is well understood that hypertension, dyslipidemia, and diabetes mellitus are the major risks of chronic kidney disease. Current guidelines recommend screening kidney estimated glomerular filtration function with serum creatinine. But it is not the utmost effective method and the GFR would be underestimated. Since good correlation was noticed between serum creatinine and chronic kidney disease, urinary microalbumin levels is better for patients with risks of chronic kidney diseases. With adequate and early education, or antihypertensive agents with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) or angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARB), all could alleviate renal function deterioration and the severity of proteinuria. As a result, high sensitive methods is urgent and needed for early screening and diseases following up under medication with ACEi and ARB in chronic kidney disease patients. In this project, the investigators are going to include the patients with typy II diabetes mellitus combining with hypertension who are treated with antihypertensive agents. Such volunteers will be treated with Candesartan 8-16mg/ day and maintain systolic blood pressure <130 mm/Hg, diastolic blood pressure < 80 mm/ Hg as the goal. Therefore, this project would make effort on correlation with urinary microalbumin and other biomarkers changes under Candesartan treatment- one of ARB medication for 12 weeks, and further exploration of new biomarkers that may be related to renal parenchymal injuries.

The study hypothesis is that urine concentrating ability can predict the rate of kidney function decline. Patients with kidney disease at the investigatorsclinic will be asked to give first morning urine sample and osmolarity will be measured. The investigators will follow up kidney function decline and check if there is association with urine osmolarity.

The purpose of this study is to perform a prospective evaluation regarding the relationship between platelets function and cardiovascular events in patients with ESRD. The study will include 100-200 patients with ESRD, age 18 years or older, treated in the nephrology division of Assaf Harofeh medical center. The primary end points of the study are cardiovascular events including acute myocardial infarction (defined as symptoms + acute elevation of TnI), need for coronary artery disease revascularization, or acute cerebrovascular event (TIA or CVA) and mortality. The secondary end points are any hospitalization due to acute coronary syndrome, active bleeding with the need for blood transfusion and dialysis access graft thrombosis (time to thrombosis). Blood will be taken for complete blood count including platelets count and mean platelets volume, serum electrolytes, albumin, blood lipids, Kt/V, troponin and two 5 ml aliquots from each blood collection will be separated and stored at -70co until analyzed for oxidative stress, homocysteine and highly sensitive CRP will be performed. Five mL of blood will be sent for platelets function assessment. During the follow up period the correlation between platelets function an cardiovascular events will be assessed.