While one of the most common forms of chronic kidney damage is fibrotic injury, the ability to accurately measure donor-derived fibrotic burden could have major implications on how donor kidney selection and allocation are performed.
However, the current kidney biopsies with histologic analysis of chronic donor-derived renal injury, such as scarring, used to further assess donor kidney quality do not appear to improve transplant outcomes and may increase kidney discard rates.
The Canadian researchers developed a quantitative algorithm, called renal H-scan, that can be added to standard ultrasound workflows to quickly and noninvasively measure renal fibrotic burden in preclinical animal models and human transplant kidneys.
In the study, the researchers provide evidence that biopsy-based fibrosis estimates, because of their highly localized nature, are inaccurate measures of whole-kidney fibrotic burden and do not associate with kidney function post-transplant. In contrast, the researchers show that whole-kidney H-scan fibrosis estimates associate closely with post-transplant renal function.
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