From Washington Post, Comic Riffs BY MICHAEL CAVNA
“I won’t always be a teacher but I will always be an artist, and with that comes power,” Osborne tells The Post’s Comic Riffs. “Artists can change the world — this we know — so Harrison was that wake-up call I needed.”
That call to action has just led to his launch of POP Remedy, an online syndicate that aims to support cause-focused comics. Osborne has kicked off his site this month with his comic strip “Watter,” with the aim to fight kidney disease.
Comic Riffs caught up with Osborne during our own nation’s National Kidney Month to talk about his passion for art, his commitment to a cause — and just what roles “Garfield” and “Sherman’s Lagoon” are playing in all of this: [Read more]
Kidney Issues
From Crain's Chicago Business, By Andrew L. Wang
Highland Park Hospital is getting out of the outpatient dialysis business, as fewer hospitals find they can make money treating end-stage renal disease.
One of four hospitals in NorthShore University HealthSystem, the 149-bed Highland Park facility is proposing to transfer the roughly 100 patients using its 20-station facility to a similarly sized unit to be set up nearby by Fresenius Medical Care, a division of German conglomerate Fresenius SE & Co.
The new 12,600-square-foot unit would sit in leased space at 1657 Old Skokie Road in Highland Park and cost about $14.6 million to outfit, according to two applications filed by the hospital and the company with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board, which must approve the move.
A spokesman for NorthShore declined to comment on the applications, as did a spokeswoman for Fresenius, whose U.S. operations are based Waltham, Mass.
The hospital notes in its application that operating a dialysis unit “is no longer consistent with the acute care mission of a community hospital, such as Highland Park Hospital. As a result, only a handful of Chicago-area hospitals continue to provide the service.”
Indeed, according to state figures, there are fewer than 10 hospital-based outpatient dialysis centers out of about 220 in Illinois. Of 5,560 such facilities nationally in 2011, 10 percent were in hospitals, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee, or MedPAC, an independent body that advises Congress on Medicare issues.
DOLLARS AND CENTS
“Hospitals have been shedding this service for years,” said John Sullivan, an associate professor of finance at Boston University who has studied the dialysis industry.
The reason, he said, is economic. [Read more]
From ABC.net.au, Australia, The World Today with Eleanor Hill
Research released today by Sydney University's Kidney Research Group warns that the increase in diabetes in Australia is having grave consequences for kidney health.
It reveals that the spike in diabetic kidney disease across Australia is one of the largest increases of any developed country.
Thomas Oriti reports.
THOMAS ORITI: Kidney Health Australia says diabetes is "out of control" and is now the main cause of kidney failure in Australia.
Dr Timothy Mathew is the organisation's national medical director.
TIMOTHY MATHEW: The rise in the incidents of diabetes will likely continue and the number of people on dialysis and transplantation will likely double in the next 15 years. It puts costs around this, which are enormous, and illustrates that the kidney problem is one of the main, if not the main cause of people with diabetes dying early.
THOMAS ORITI: Dr Matthew is warning the condition is now reaching epidemic proportions, and is having an enormous impact.
TIMOTHY MATHEW: People on dialysis and transplantation are costing something like a billion dollars a year at the current time. I mean each individual on dialysis costs $60,000 to $80,000 per year so it's a high cost treatment. This report identifies that at least an extra billion is spent on the early part of kidney disease, that is, well before you start dialysis and transplantation.
THOMAS ORITI: Dr Mathew describes it as frightening pattern and the trend isn't slowing. [Read more]
Gift of Life
The France Tower at Halifax Health Medical Center, 303 N. Clyde Morris Blvd., will glow green every night in April in recognition of Donate Life Month, honoring organ donors. A flag-raising ceremony also is scheduled for 3 p.m. April 7.
Mike Mulrooney, the manager of the Halifax Health Transplant and Dialysis Services, spoke to The News-Journal about the importance of organ donation.
What is the waiting list for a donated organ?
There are about 15,000 total transplants nationally with a wait list of 115,000. The need far outweighs the ability to transplant. There are about 80,000 on the kidney-only waiting list. Here at Halifax our wait list is 45 patients for kidney transplants. We’re fortunate in Florida. We have a shorter waiting time. It’s about two years here in Central Florida. In states like New York or California, the wait is as long as five or seven years. [Read more]
From White Bear Press, by Debra Neutkens/Regional Editor
April is National Donate Life Month.
A proclamation read by Mayor Jo Emerson before last week’s City Council meeting is meant to shine a light on people like Kevin Maijala. He’s been on the University of Minnesota’s kidney transplant list for 16 months.
The mayoral proclamation, adopted by many cities throughout the state, brings attention to organ, eye and tissue donation — “a gift which extends hope and healing to those in need,” it read. According to statistics provided by the mayor, 3,000 Minnesotans are waiting for life-saving transplants. A serious shortage of transplantable organs means only 28,000 transplants occur each year.
Average wait time for a kidney is 4.5 years, said Maijala, who suffers from polycystic kidney disease, a congenital condition diagnosed when he was 7 years old.
While he waits for a new kidney, the White Bear Lake resident doesn’t let renal failure stop him from leading a normal lifestyle and maintaining a full-time job as manager of curriculum development with the Minnesota Historical Society.
“I only have 20 percent kidney function, so I get tired and the treatments can be painful, but I golf, bowl, and play softball,” Maijala said. He and wife Amy have two children and the husband and father makes a point to stay active for his family. There are things he can’t do, like swim in a lake or river, but he can swim in the ocean or pool.
Daily treatment is done by home dialysis. Fluid inserted through a port in the lining of his abdominal cavity, called the peritoneum, absorbs toxins and other waste products like a kidney would. The 2 liters of fluid must be drained and replaced every six hours. [Read more]
PKD Treatments
Rie Yoshida, MD, of Kansai Medical University Hirakata Hospital in Hirakata City, Osaka, and colleagues studied 5 ADPKD patients (4 women and 1 man) who underwent renal artery embolization using a mixture of N-butyl cyanoacrylate (NBCA) and iodized oil with low density.
All patients had severe refractory symptoms secondary to enlarged kidneys after initiation of dialysis. Bilateral and unilateral renal artery embolization was performed in 4 patients and 1 patient, respectively. Angiography was performed to confirm complete occlusion of the entire renal artery. Among nine kidneys, renal volume reduction was evaluated using computed tomography at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after treatment.
Results showed that the technical and clinical success was 100%. None of the patients underwent another renal artery embolization procedure or additional volume reduction therapy. One patient had a hematoma at the puncture site. Symptoms decreased markedly in all patients and did not recur.
The mean basal renal volume before embolization was 2,222 cm3. The mean volume reduction rates were 83.0%, 65.5%, and 62.9% at 1, 3, and 6 months, respectively. At 12 months, the mean volume was 1,411 cm3 and the volume reduction rate was 50.9%, which was statistically significant.
“Transcatheter renal artery embolization with NBCA for symptomatic ADPKD is a feasible and effective procedure that offers relief of symptoms as well as renal volume reduction,” the authors concluded in their study abstract.
PKD Research
From 7th Space, Press Release
Novel mutations of PKD genes in the Czech population with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease
Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is the most common hereditary renal disorder caused by mutation in either one of two genes, PKD1 and PKD2. High structural and sequence complexity of PKD genes makes the mutational diagnostics of ADPKD challenging.
The present study is the first detailed analysis of both PKD genes in a cohort of Czech patients with ADPKD using High Resolution Melting analysis (HRM) and Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification (MLPA).
Methods: The mutational analysis of PKD genes was performed in a set of 56 unrelated patients. For mutational screening of the PKD1 gene, the long-range PCR (LR-PCR) strategy followed by nested PCR was used.
Resulting PCR fragments were analyzed by HRM; the positive cases were reanalyzed and confirmed by direct sequencing. Negative samples were further examined for sequence changes in the PKD2 gene by the method of HRM and for large rearrangements of both PKD1 and PKD2 genes by MLPA.
Results: Screening of the PKD1 gene revealed 36 different likely pathogenic germline sequence changes in 37 unrelated families/individuals.
Twenty-five of these sequence changes were described for the first time. Moreover, a novel large deletion was found within the PKD1 gene in one patient.
Via the mutational analysis of the PKD2 gene, two additional likely pathogenic mutations were detected.
Conclusions: Probable pathogenic mutation was detected in 71% of screened patients. Determination of PKD mutations and their type and localization within corresponding genes could help to assess clinical prognosis of ADPKD patients and has major benefit for prenatal and/or presymptomatic or preimplantational diagnostics in affected families as well.
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