A new electronic health record (EHR) tool could help physicians quickly and accurately flag patients that should be referred to a nephrologist based on indicators that may signal the risk of kidney failure. Designed by Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) investigators, this tool draws upon recent research that has identified several tests that can be used to calculate an individual’s risk score. Now, an automatic calculator can be built into EHRs and displayed prominently for a physician to see when they open a patient’s record. The paper detailing the design and implementation of the application appeared online in the July 2017, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. Read More

Managing acute kidney injury (AKI) can be challenging, in part because evidence about when to begin treatment — namely, dialysis and other forms of renal replacement therapy that artificially filter the blood — is quite limited and offers conflicting perspectives. Read More

When the kidneys – vital organs for filtering the body’s entire blood supply – become injured, it can set in motion an unfortunate chain of events that leads to a decline in health. Sometimes, in response to chronic injury, the body begins an aberrant repair process known as fibrosis, in which normal fibroblast cells transform into myofibroblasts, proliferate out of control, migrate and form scar tissue. Once scar tissue begins to form, functional cells begin to die, and the scar tissue multiplies. Investigators have been looking for a way to break this cycle, and new findings indicate that a gene known as SMOC2 may point the way to a new intervention that could prevent this cascade of events. Read More