Raising blood pressure to save lives

Severe low blood pressure affects as many as half of kidney disease sufferers undergoing dialysis. Their intradialytic hypotension (IDH), or very low blood pressure, can become so serious that it causes life-threatening symptoms, such as abnormal heart function and low blood supply to the brain, and it leads some patients to prematurely end their life-prolonging treatments. In studies presented at the National Kidney Foundation Meeting in Orlando in April and published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, Mark A. Perazella, M.D., associate professor of medicine and director of the Acute Dialysis Services, found that midodrine hydrochloride could significantly and safely reduce IDH among dialysis patients, even among those who did not respond to other treatments.