Prevention of acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery

Prevention of Acute Kidney Injury after Cardiac Surgery

Kidney injury after cardiac surgery affects over a quarter of heart operations, and increases the risk of other severe complications developing. BHF Professor of Cardiac Surgery, Gavin Murphy and colleagues at the University of Leicester, will use nearly £800,000 to understand how kidneys respond to the stress of heart surgery and the development of a new treatment to prevent kidney damage in high-risk patients such as diabetics. Kidney injury increases the number of signalling molecules in the bloodstream. Some of the signals protect the kidney whilst others are harmful. The overall balance of the signals is thought to determine the extent of the kidney damage. Tiny molecules called microRNAs, which travel in the blood in sheaths called microvesicles, are thought to control the signals that lead to kidney injury. The researchers want to know how these microvesicles regulate kidney signalling after heart surgery (particularly in people with diabetes) and the possibility of the microvesicles being used to diagnose kidney injury or as a new target for medicines. The group will also study whether a medicine called sildenafil – which has been shown to have a protective effect on the kidney – can help prevent damage after heart surgery. The trial will seek to identify whether patients who are given sildenafil have fewer complications (and a shorter hospital stay) than those who are given a dummy drug, or placebo. This research could pave the way for a new way to control kidney injury through the use of a medicine that is already widely available.