Renal Biomarkers

Renal Disease Biomarkers

Center of Economic Excellence

Renal diseases affect millions of people in the United States. Diseases that affect the kidney can be either acute or chronic. Acute kidney disease occurs over a short period of time and is often seen in hospitalized patients with other medical problems. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a progressive and often irreversible process that can lead to complete kidney failure requiring renal replacement therapy (kidney transplantation or dialysis). Biomarkers are proteins or other molecules that can be used to predict the presence of a disease or a clinical feature of the disease. The discovery of biomarkers has dramatically improved the treatment of patients with heart attacks but no good markers are available for kidney diseases. Acute kidney disease is also known as acute kidney injury (AKI). The incidence of AKI can be as high as 50% in acutely ill hospitalized patients such as those with sepsis or after complicated cardiac surgery. The mortality associated with AKI is 50% and has remained at this level for decades in spite of improvements in treatment. A major impediment to improving treatment for AKI is the lack of biomarkers that could be used to test new therapies and to identify patients for early treatments. Chronic kidney disease is also a highly significant societal problem. Nearly 500,000 Americans are receiving renal replacement therapy for end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Several million more individuals have CKD that has not progressed to ESRD, and all of those individuals are at risk to progress to ESRD. Even small degrees of CKD are associated with large increases in cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke. In fact, most patients with CKD die of cardiovascular disease before they progress to end-stage renal disease. The discovery of biomarkers that can identify a particular kidney disease, detect early renal dysfunction, predict prognosis or forecast the response to treatment would dramatically improve the lifespan and quality of life for patients with kidney disease and reduce the costs to patients, Medicare and society. Major improvements in the care of patients with kidney diseases will not occur until biomarkers are identified and validated to guide development of new therapies and to identify appropriate patients to receive these therapies. The lack of biomarkers is the major obstacle to improving patient care.

The Need for Biomarkers for Renal Diseases

“Major improvements in the care of patients with kidney diseases will not occur until biomarkers are identified and validated to guide development of new therapies.”