The investigation will start this month. “This is groundbreaking research,” says Ron Gansevoort, professor of internal medicine at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) and research leader. “We know that the drug works in patients with somewhat impaired renal function. We are going to see for the first time whether it also works in patients with severely impaired kidney function, dialysis patients and people who have a donor kidney.”
Discovered by accident
The drugs under study are so-called SGLT2 inhibitors. This is a new class of drugs that originally came on the market for people with diabetes to lower blood sugar levels. Gansevoort: “It was discovered by accident that the drugs work well for people with kidney and heart problems, even if they don’t have diabetes. The results from several studies are spectacular: the decline in kidney function is slowed down and sometimes stops altogether. There are also fewer hospital admissions for heart failure and fewer people die.”
The new drug works on the sugar balance of the kidney. Gansevoort: “Because of the SGLT2 inhibitor you lose some sugar via the urine, and as a result you also lose some water and salt. This triggers a complex mechanism in the kidneys that reduces the pressure on the kidney filters. The kidney filters have to work less hard and therefore last longer.”
Drug effect in all phases of kidney patient’s life
These drugs have been shown to work in kidney patients with a reasonably good kidney function. The Renal Lifecycle study now examines for the first time how the drug works in people with kidney function of 25 percent or less. People who are on dialysis or who have had a kidney transplant are also included.
It concerns the patient groups where the need is greatest, explains Wouter Eijgelaar, manager of Care & Innovation at the Kidney Foundation. “If your kidneys stop working, you need dialysis. Or you get a kidney transplant and then you hope to pick up your life again. But you have to take a lot of drugs to keep the transplanted kidney. That’s still not an easy life. There is also the complication of cardiovascular disease, which you have a greatly increased risk of as a kidney patient. And if you’re unlucky, the transplanted organ will fail and you’ll have to go back to dialysis. If the new drug even works, it will have a huge impact for all these people.”
Great gift
This research is possible thanks to a historically large gift from the Piet Poortman Fund, which the Kidney Foundation received last year. In total, the Kidney Foundation will use 3.3 million euros of the gift to finance the study. Never before has the Kidney Foundation invested such a large amount of money in a clinical study. “We want to make history with research that isn’t funded by the pharmaceutical industry,” Gansevoort says. “Pharmaceutical companies didn’t want to fund it, because the drug’s patents expire in a few years. They can’t make that much money from it anymore. .”
Dreamed outcome
The dream outcome for kidney patients is that the research shows that the drug stops the decline in kidney function and prevents heart failure and death.
Whatever the results will be, the research is meaningful in all cases. Gansevoort: “If the medicine does not work or does not work sufficiently, it is clear that we should not prescribe it to people with severe kidney damage. If it does work, it will be one of the biggest positive changes in the treatment of kidney patients in the last twenty years.” The results of the study are expected in four years’ time.
By: National Care Guide