Duke researchers uncover genetic link to kidney damage after hea...( DURHAM N.C. Specific variants of genes...)

While renal dysfunction after heart surgery is a common occurrence, until now researchers have been unable to predict with any certainty which patients based on their personal and medical characteristics are at the highest risk. The current analysis showed that patients with the particular genetic variants, or polymorphisms, have a collective two- to four-fold greater likelihood of suffering renal dysfunction after heart surgery.

This is important, the researchers said, since one out of every 12 patients who undergo heart surgery suffers serious kidney impairment. While most cases of this kidney injury are transient, up to two percent of patients will require kidney dialysis, with 60 percent of those patients dying before hospital discharge. Since more than 750,000 patients worldwide undergo heart surgery every year, the magnitude of the problem is large, the researchers said.

The results of the Duke analysis were published in the March, 2005 issue of the American Journal of Kidney Disease. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association.

"If the results of our study are borne out in other populations, they should not only be useful for physicians as they counsel their patients who are undergoing heart surgery, but may also help physicians as they decide between medical or surgical treatments, based on a patient's unique characteristics and genetic make-up," said lead researcher Mark Stafford-Smith, M.D., Duke cardiothoracic anesthesiologist. "This new genetic information may also help facilitate individually tailored medical therapy designed to reduce renal injury and its subsequent medical problems."

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Contact: Richard Merritt
Merri006@mc.duke.edu
919-684-4148
Duke University Medical Center
1-Mar-2005