Kidney research, 2026-09-06
Big swings in blood potassium levels linked to higher death risk for people on dialysis
Researchers followed 201 people on dialysis for about 6 years and found that unstable potassium levels — measured as K-CV — were associated with higher death risk. The link held even after accounting for age, diabetes, and other health conditions. Because this was an observational study, it cannot confirm that potassium swings directly cause higher risk. People on dialysis should discuss potassium management with their care team.
Serum Albumin and C-Reactive Protein as Predictors of Intradialytic Hypotension in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease on Maintenance Hemodialysis: A Hospital-Based Case-Control Study
Researchers compared dialysis patients whose blood pressure crashed during treatment with patients whose did not, then looked at two blood tests: albumin, a protein tied to...
Glucose Regulation States and Renal Outcomes in Patients with Preserved Kidney Function
This study followed people whose kidney filtering rate (eGFR) was still normal, sorted them by blood sugar control into normal, prediabetes, and diabetes, and tracked whose kidneys...
The impact of changes in N‐terminal pro‐B‐type natriuretic peptide on the outcome of acute kidney injury in patients with ST‐segment elevation myocardial infarction after percutaneous coronary intervention: a retrospective study
Doctors looked back at hospital records of people who had a major heart attack and were treated with a stent. They checked whether changes in NT-proBNP, a blood marker of strain on...
Urinary Tissue Inhibitor of Metalloproteinases-2 and Insulin Like Growth Factor Binding Protein-7 as Early Markers of Cardiorenal Syndrome Type -1 in Patients Hospitalized with Acute Heart Failure
Researchers measured two proteins in the urine, TIMP-2 and IGFBP7, in people admitted to hospital with sudden heart failure. Both proteins rise early when the kidneys are under...
Urea and blood urea nitrogen levels in pediatric and adult patients with uremic stomatitis: a systematic review
Researchers gathered the published reports on uremic stomatitis, the painful mouth sores that can appear when the kidneys fail. They looked at how high urea and blood urea...
Serum C4/C3 ratio at disease onset predicts end-stage renal disease in microscopic polyangiitis: the multicentre REVEAL cohort
Microscopic polyangiitis is a disease where the immune system attacks small blood vessels, often including the ones in the kidneys. Researchers followed patients at several...
SPECT/CT confirms metastatic pulmonary calcification on bone scintigraphy: Directing management in a dialysis patient
A person on dialysis had a bone scan that hinted calcium had built up in the lungs, a known problem when kidneys stop balancing calcium and phosphate. A more detailed scan called...
Síndrome Cardio Renal en Pacientes con Insuficiencia Cardiaca Prevención y Reducción de la mortalidad desde el ámbito de la medicina interna y cardiología
This is a Spanish language paper about cardiorenal syndrome, where a failing heart and failing kidneys make each other worse. It discusses how internal medicine and heart doctors...
Altered IFN-γ Response in HCV-infected Hemodialysis Patients
People on dialysis who also carry hepatitis C had a changed immune response involving interferon gamma, a chemical messenger the body uses to fight viruses. Researchers measured...
HDAC4 drives ferroptosis and fibrosis by inhibiting Foxo3a-GPX4 axis during AKI–CKD progression
A protein called HDAC4 pushed kidney cells toward a form of cell death driven by iron, and toward scarring of kidney tissue. It did this by shutting down a protective pathway...
Association between serum lactate trajectories and short-term mortality in pediatric acute kidney injury patients
Doctors tracked blood lactate in children with sudden kidney injury. Lactate is a waste product that builds up when organs are not getting enough oxygen. Children whose lactate...
Comparative effectiveness of GLP-1 receptor agonists versus mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists as fourth-line pharmacological therapy in patients with resistant hypertension and overweight or obesity: a retrospective multicenter cohort study in the USA.
Some people have blood pressure that stays high on three drugs, which is called resistant hypertension. Guidelines say to add a drug like spironolactone next, but this study looked...
[Treatment of Hypercholesterolemia in Chronic Kidney Disease: Rationale and Therapeutic Approaches from the Non-Dialysis Stage to Kidney Transplantation].
Most people with kidney disease face heart attacks and strokes, often before their kidneys fail. This review walks through how LDL cholesterol, the harmful kind, drives that risk...
Epidemiology and Maternal-Fetal Outcomes of Pregnancy-Related Acute Kidney Injury: A Prospective Observational Study of a Predominantly Dialysis-Requiring Cohort at a Tertiary Care Center in Northern India.
This study followed pregnant women in northern India who had sudden kidney failure, most of them sick enough to need dialysis. Milder cases usually recovered fully. The women who...
Association of blood urea nitrogen to high-density lipoprotein ratio with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in individuals with mildly reduced eGFR.
Researchers combined two routine blood tests into one number: blood urea nitrogen, a waste product the kidneys clear, divided by HDL, the good cholesterol. They tested whether a...
Continuation of sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors in advanced chronic kidney disease: a retrospective study with inverse probability of treatment weighting analysis.
SGLT2 inhibitors are diabetes drugs that also slow kidney disease, but doctors often stop them once the kidney filtering rate (eGFR) falls to 20 or below, because there is little...
Dynamic potassium variability (K-CV) as an independent predictor of mortality in maintenance hemodialysis.
This study followed 201 people on dialysis for about 6 years and found that bigger swings in blood potassium levels — measured as K-CV — were linked to higher death risk, even...
Incidence and predictors of falls in hemodialysis patients: a prospective cohort study comparing the Downton scale and the Index of Frailty-VIG
Researchers followed people on dialysis over time to count how often they fell, and compared two scoring tools meant to predict falls: the Downton scale and the Index of...
Association between vitamin D deficiency and chronic kidney disease progression: A GRADE-based dose-response systematic review and meta-analysis.
Researchers pooled observational studies published between 1990 and 2024 that measured vitamin D in the blood and then tracked whether kidney disease got worse. People with lower...
Renal Rehabilitation and Its Relationship with Anemia, Nutritional Status, and Activities of Daily Living in Patients Undergoing Maintenance Hemodialysis: A Systematic Review.
Renal rehabilitation means structured exercise, food and nutrition support, and a team of different specialists working together. This review gathered studies published between...
Over-hydration as a key modifiable predictor of obstructive sleep apnea severity in dialysis patients with daytime sleepiness.
Sleep apnea means breathing stops and restarts during sleep, and it is common but often missed in people on dialysis. Researchers studied 40 dialysis patients who felt very sleepy...
Prevalence and Risk Factors for the Detection of Environmental Nephropathy in the Colombian Caribbean.
Researchers measured kidney function before and after a single work shift in 78 rural workers in the Colombian Caribbean, 48 in farming and 30 in construction. They also recorded...
Best Case/Worst Case: A Multisite Randomized Trial of Scenario Planning for Patients With Late‐Stage Kidney Disease
Best Case/Worst Case is a talking tool that helps a doctor walk a patient through what could happen at best, at worst, and most likely, before they choose a treatment. This trial...
Associations of major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and aggression with subclinical variations in kidney function biomarkers among young adults: A cross-sectional study from the rafsanjan youth cohort study
Young adults in a large Iranian health study were screened for depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and aggression, and their kidney blood tests were compared. People...
Venous valve–related occlusion in thrombosed arteriovenous fistulas: outcomes of ultrasound-guided percutaneous transluminal angioplasty
People on dialysis often have a surgical link between an artery and a vein in the arm, called a fistula, used to connect to the machine. This study looked at fistulas that clotted...
The applications of organoids in kidney diseases: progress and challenges
This is a review of kidney organoids, which are tiny kidney-like tissues grown in a dish from stem cells. It covers what they can already do, such as modeling kidney disease and...
Incidence, Risk Factors, and Economic Impact of Bleeding After Renal Biopsy: A Prospective Cohort Study.
A kidney biopsy takes a tiny piece of kidney with a spring loaded needle so doctors can see what is damaging it. This study followed every adult who got one at a South Asian center...
Use of NxStage VersiHD for Frequent Home Hemodialysis in a Hospital Setting: A New Opportunity for Complex Patients.
The NxStage VersiHD is a portable dialysis machine built for home use. It runs on sterile bags of pre mixed fluid, so it does not need a hospital's built in water treatment...
Sustained Low-Efficiency Dialysis Versus Intermittent Hemodialysis in Critically Ill Patients with Severe Acute Kidney Injury.
This compared two ways of cleaning the blood in intensive care patients with severe sudden kidney failure: slow gentle dialysis run over many hours (SLED) and standard shorter...
Association of pre-transplant cardiac risk phenotype and coronary revascularization strategy with one-year mortality after living-donor kidney transplantation: a single-center cohort
Doctors at one hospital looked back at people who received a kidney from a living donor. They checked whether a person's heart risk before surgery, and which heart artery treatment...
Subcutaneous Daratumumab in Recurrent Posttransplant Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis: A Report of 2 Cases.
Two people whose kidney disease came back after a transplant went into remission after getting daratumumab, a drug given as a shot under the skin. The disease is FSGS, a scarring...
Annual dialysis data report 2023, Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy (JSDT) Renal Data Registry
Japan counts everyone on dialysis in the country each year, and this is the 2023 report. It covers how many people are on dialysis, who they are, and how they are doing. Numbers...
Tree And Regression Based Variants for Early Kidney Disease Prediction Using Machine Learning: Performance and Interpretability
Researchers tested computer programs, some tree based and some regression based, to spot kidney disease early from patient data. They compared how accurate each program was and how...