Machine learning applied to digital pathology has been increasingly used to assess kidney function and diagnose the underlying cause of chronic kidney disease (CKD). We developed a novel computational framework, clustering-based spatial analysis (CluSA), that leverages unsupervised learning to learn spatial relationships between local visual patterns in kidney tissue. This framework minimizes the need for time-consuming and impractical expert annotations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPathologists use visual classification to assess patient kidney biopsy samples when diagnosing the underlying cause of kidney disease. However, the assessment is qualitative, or semi-quantitative at best, and reproducibility is challenging. To discover previously unknown features which predict patient outcomes and overcome substantial interobserver variability, we developed an unsupervised bag-of-words model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The goal of this study was to examine patterns in the likelihood of consent to genetic research among participants in a prospective kidney disease cohort and biobank, and to determine demographic, clinical, and socioeconomic factors linked to consent for ongoing and future genetic research.
Methods: The Clinical Phenotyping Resource and Biobank Core (C-PROBE) enrolled 1628 adult and pediatric patients with chronic kidney disease from 2009 to 2017 across 7 sites in the United States. Participants were asked at annual study visits for consent to provide DNA samples for future genetic studies.
Background And Objectives: Proteinuria is used as an indicator of FSGS disease activity, but its use as a clinical trial end point is not universally accepted. The goal of this study was to refine proteinuria definitions associated with long-term kidney survival.
Design, Setting, Participants, & Measurements: Data on 466 patients with primary FSGS with proteinuria (urine protein-to-creatinine ratio >1 g/g) were analyzed from five independent cohorts.
Growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) is a member of the TGF- cytokine superfamily that is widely expressed and may be induced in response to tissue injury. Elevations in GDF-15 may identify a novel pathway involved in loss of kidney function among patients with CKD. Among participants in the Clinical Phenotyping and Resource Biobank (C-PROBE) study and the Seattle Kidney Study (SKS), we tested whether kidney tissue expression of mRNA correlates with circulating levels of GDF-15 and whether elevations in circulating GDF-15 are associated with decline in kidney function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: This analysis from the Nephrotic Syndrome Study Network (NEPTUNE) assessed the phenotypic and pathology characteristics of proteinuric patients undergoing kidney biopsy and defined the frequency and factors associated with complete proteinuria remission (CRever).
Design, Setting, Participants, & Measurements: We enrolled adults and children with proteinuria ≥0.5 g/d at the time of first clinically indicated renal biopsy at 21 sites in North America from April 2010 to June 2014 into a prospective cohort study.
Objectives: Vitamin D has pleiotropic effects on cardiac, renal, and endocrine diseases like diabetes mellitus and deficiency has been correlated with increased Intensive Care Unit (ICU) morbidity and mortality. We studied the relationship between preoperative Vitamin D levels and several short-term endpoints including cardiovascular events, glucose levels, ICU, and hospital length of stay.
Methods: Standard demographic data were obtained.
Background: Aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) is a measure of arterial stiffness and has proved useful in predicting cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in several populations of patients, including the healthy elderly, hypertensives and those with end-stage renal disease receiving hemodialysis. Little data exist characterizing aortic stiffness in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) who are not receiving dialysis, and in particular the effect of reduced kidney function on aortic PWV.
Methods: We performed measurements of aortic PWV in a cross-sectional cohort of participants enrolled in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) study to determine factors which predict increased aortic PWV in CKD.
Background: A low rate of blood pressure control has been reported in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). These data were derived from population-based samples with a low rate of CKD awareness.
Study Design: Cross-sectional.
Background: Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have a disproportionate risk of cardiovascular disease. This study was designed to assess the association between two noninvasive measures of cardiovascular risk, pulse wave analysis (PWA), and carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), in a cohort of CKD patients enrolled in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) study.
Methods: Three hundred and sixty-seven subjects with CKD enrolled in the CRIC study at the University of Pennsylvania site (mean age 59.
Objective: Previous studies have shown that most medical inpatients receive treatment supported by strong evidence (evidence-based treatment), but they have not assessed whether and how physicians actually use evidence when making their treatment decisions. We investigated whether physicians would change inpatient treatment if presented with the results of a literature search.
Design: Before-after study.