Product News and Recalls

Artificial kidney shows promise

Scientists have developed a new method to make an artificial kidney that functions in rats, intensifying a race among several laboratories to create a replacement organ that may someday be used for humans.

The stakes are high, according to a Fox News report.

About 100,000 people with end-stage renal disease in the Unites States are on waiting lists for a donor kidney. Of those, about 5,000 to 10,000 die each year before getting to the top of the transplant list. And about 40 percent of the 18,000 U.S. patients who get a kidney transplant each year suffer organ failure within 10 years.

And kidney dialysis may carry risks of its own.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating allegations that Fresenius, a German company that is the largest operator of dialysis centers in the United States, may have concealed links between its Granuflo product and cardiac arrest.

In November, 2011, the company issued a warning to doctors in its own clinics, informing them that nearly 1,000 of their patients had suffered cardiac arrest, and that GranuFlo was the likely cause. But Fresenius didn’t share that information with other clinics using its products until March, 2012, after an anonymous tipster notified the FDA of the in-house warning.

According to the Fox News story, different laboratories are experimenting with different methods for creating the artificial kidney – including 3D printing, which has already yielded a lab-made kidney that works in lab rodents, and a “bioreactor” that slowly infuses cells onto the rudimentary scaffold of a kidney.

You should consult with a doctor before making any change in your medical care. If you or a loved one have suffered injury or death after kidney dialysis, contact Lopez McHugh for a free consultation; we can help determine if GranuFlo was used.

See the story here:

https://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/04/15/lab-made-rat-kidneys-raise-hopes-for-dialysis-patients/