Possible Treatment for PKD

What it is:

PKD stands for Polycystic Kidney Disease, it’s a condition which effects around 12.5 million people worldwide. PKD is among the commonest life-threatening genetic illnesses on the planet. Somebody who has PKD will spread kidney cysts little by little throughout their life, affected organs can, after 40-50 years, reach the size of footballs. It goes without saying that they can become a source of acute ache and, sooner or later, affected kidneys will surrender to renal failure, no matter what. Eventually, a kidney transplant may be the only way to save the patient.

For many years, patients with PKD went undiagnosed and so the disease claimed a great many lives without ever being properly recognized. Now, however, it is an globally documented ailment and sufferers are closely monitored from an young age.

In November of ’12, doctors in the KU kidney institute in Kansas, USA, developed a drug called tolvaptan. The drug was discovered to slow the growth of cysts and also easing the damaged kidney use, this was a much-needed step by the right direction, but it is not a treatment.

This year, things have been looking up even further. Scientists functioning at Massachusetts For the General Hospital were actually able to grow a viable rat kidney and transplant it into a living animal. Moreover to that, Dr. Xiaogang Li of the KU Kidney institute lately discovered that vitamin B3 can slow the expansion of cysts; in reality, his team was able to entirely restore kidney use in test mice with PKD. Now that is progress.

Why we would like it:

Because 12.5 million citizens around the planet are suffering with a hereditary, life threatening illness, also, babies with PKD are being born every single day. A cure is required and it is wanted now.

When can we expect it?

A bona-fide treatment may yet be decades away, but when regular vitamin shots can be used to control the illness itself, allowing patients to survive longer, better lives, then I’d say that we were absolutely on the right path.

Drugs that rule the illness can be obtainable soon, though. Large-scale Human being trials have hinted that vitamin B3 is trustworthy for widespread use. This means that it might be available to patients all over the world relatively soon.

Doctors eventually hope to be able to treat PKD in the womb, stopping the disease before it begins. That may, effectively, constitute a cure. Such expertise is likely 10 years (or more) away, but we’re getting there.

Cool Factor: 5/5

Remember that scene in ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ where the crew of that Enterprise fly back in time to that mid 1980’s and Doc McCoy encounters an elderly Woman who wants kidney dialysis. Exploding in skepticism, the great doctor cries “what is this, the dark ages!?” before giving the Lady a pill that swiftly grows her a new kidney, much to her joy. That’s where we can be within a couple of decades – ‘Star Trek’ technology. What could be cooler than that?

Joining the NHS organ donor list is a way you may help this example, today. 

Possible Treatment for PKD