DENVER — At ASN Kidney Week, Komal Safdar, MD, nephrologist at Cleveland Clinic, discussed what it is like to run a sports nephrology clinic and the type of athletes she and her team work with.
Athletes who developed kidney complications while playing their sports, athletes with preexisting kidney disease who want to keep playing their sport and athletes seeking guidance on hydration or electrolyte replacement make up some of the patients seen by Safdar and colleagues.
Safdar said sports nephrology is an emerging field, but it has existed under different names across the globe. She hopes

DENVER — Children born to kidney transplant recipients had normal growth and development, but careful planning is needed for transplant recipients who want to become pregnant, according to data presented at ASN Kidney Week.
The Transplant Pregnancy Registry International (TPRI), originally named the National Transplantation Pregnancy Registry, was established in 1991 to assess pregnancy outcomes among transplant recipients in the U.S., according to Serban Constantinescu, MD, PhD, coinvestigator of the TPRI research team. Since being renamed in 2016, the TPRI has expanded to include

DENVER — The annual number of U.S. deaths attributed to renal failure with substance use disorder listed as contributing cause rose 14-fold between 1999 and 2024, peaking in 2022, according to data presented at ASN Kidney Week.
“This growing overlap warrants greater attention to substance-use disorders within kidney care,” Naga Anvesh Kodali, MD, PGY-2 internal medicine resident at the University of Central Florida/HCA Florida Ocala Hospital, told Healio. “Depending on the substance and circumstances, kidney injury can occur through reduced renal blood flow,

DENVER — Moderate to severe depression was linked to greater mortality risks for kidney stone formers, according to study data presented at ASN Kidney Week.
Individuals who develop kidney stones may face greater psychosocial burden, including depression, according to Jie Tang, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine (nephrology) at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and colleagues. Thus, the researchers aimed to understand whether depression severity was associated with all-cause mortality and CV mortality among kidney stone formers.
“Kidney stone disease is now recognized

DENVER — Patients with chronic kidney disease or end-stage kidney disease are not routinely referred to a dentist, according to data presented at ASN Kidney Week.
Despite low referral rates, more than two-thirds of nephrologists were interested in a pilot program to improve interdisciplinary care with dentists, the data showed.
Healio previously reported on the bidirectional link between oral and kidney health, with emerging research finding evidence that the two are connected through systemic inflammation, endothelial dysfunction and immune dysregulation.
Although the oral-kidney health

When Katherine R. Tuttle, MD, FASN, FACP, FNKF, began working on some of the earliest treatment trials for kidney disease — often as the only woman among the investigators — making a difference for patients was her mission.
“I was the person who understood the science, but I also understood the patients,” Tuttle, who is executive director for research at Providence Inland Northwest Health, told Healio.
Four decades later, women are much better represented among clinical trial faculty, and Tuttle advises women making a career in nephrology to put patients first:

WASHINGTON — A phase 3 clinical trial revealed that the investigational vaccine candidate — known as LB6V — showed more than 70% efficacy against confirmed Lyme disease, according to results presented at IDWeek.
But, in the end, the drug failed to hit its primary endpoint.
LB6V has a “clinically meaningful” efficacy, researcher Paul G. Auwaerter, MD, clinical director of the division of infectious diseases and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said during the presentation.
The vaccine, co-funded by Pfizer and Valneva, demonstrated 73.2% (95% CI, 15.8%-93.5%)

DENVER — Samir M. Parikh, MD, FASN, president of the American Society of Nephrology, called on nephrologists to take risks when it comes to innovation.
Parikh spoke at the opening plenary at ASN Kidney Week about the big swings the organization has taken to change and evolve the nephrology landscape.
“I would encourage my colleagues to recognize that this is an especially important time to engage in kidney health advocacy,” Parikh told Healio. “Decisions being made in Washington about research funding, visa policies, Medicare reimbursement and care delivery will have lasting consequences for

LAS VEGAS — A patient’s personal rate of decline, alongside clinical tools and the broader illness trajectory, offers important clues about prognosis and can help clinicians guide treatment decisions, a speaker said.
Leonard Hock, DO, MACOI, CMD, FAAHPM, a palliative care physician in Florida and a consultant at the American College of Osteopathic Internists, told attendees at OMED that prognosis is not simply about predicting when someone will die. It informs everyday clinical decisions, from whether to continue medications to recommending surgery, dialysis, a feeding tube or hospice

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