Systematic Estimation of Treatment Effect on Hospitalization Risk as a Drug Repurposing Screening Method.

Drug repurposing (DR) intends to identify new uses for approved medications outside their original indication. Computational methods for finding DR candidates usually rely on prior biological and chemical information on a specific drug or target but rarely utilize real-world observations. In this work, we propose a simple and effective systematic screening approach to measure medication impact on hospitalization risk based on large-scale observational data.

The use of Ga-EDTA PET allows detecting progressive decline of renal function in rats.

Introduction: Evaluation of glomerular filtration rate is very important in both preclinical and clinical setting, especially in the context of chronic kidney disease. It is typically performed using Cr-EDTA or by imaging with I-Hippuran scintigraphy, which has a significantly lower resolution and sensitivity as compared to PET. Ga-EDTA represents a valid alternative due to its quick availability using a Ge/Ga generator, while PET/CT enables both imaging of renal function and accurate quantitation of clearance of activity from both plasma and urine.