Marked for ESRD
Researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have found a biomarker-fibroblast growth factor 23-that could help predict whether a patient with early stages of kidney disease is at risk of progressing to and dying from end-stage renal disease.1 The team thinks the ability to pick out such patients could allow earlier intervention and could improve prognosis, but other researchers are not yet convinced the new biomarker offers such benefits.
Kidney disease is assessed by two primary measurements: estimated glomerular filtration ratio (GFR), which directly measures the ability of the kidney to filter the blood, and proteinuria, which measures the accumulation of proteins such as albumin in the urine as a result of kidney damage...