KU researcher’s work on kidneys published

A Kansas University researcher’s findings, published in May in The New England Journal of Medicine, hold promise for the treatment of polycystic kidney disease.

“It’s an achievement for me,” said Jared Grantham, the Harry Statland professor of nephrology at KU’s School of Medicine. “It’s also an achievement for KU Medical Center and for Kansas.”

The hereditary disease, called PKD, causes kidneys to fill with cysts and often leads to renal failure.

Treatment has been stymied because it’s been impossible to measure a drug’s effectiveness or the progression of the disease before it causes irreversible and serious damage to the kidney.

By measuring kidney volume, using magnetic resonance imaging or CT scans, the researchers were able to show a definite disease progression reflected in an increase in kidney size.