In a prior study, Dr. Chirag Parikh and his colleagues at Yale School of Medicine found that even kidneys that had suffered acute injury (due to many causes, including lack of blood supply) could be considered for transplantation instead of being discarded upon a donor’s demise. In a new paper, Parikh and his co-authors wrote that a protein that is released by the kidneys in response to injury, YKL-40, could be easily measured in urine and may serve as an indicator of organ viability for transplant. If confirmed in clinical studies, the finding could impact how donor kidneys are assessed and help meet the growing demand for organ transplants. The study was published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Submitted by Deborah Kearns on July 26, 2016