AAKP Renal Flash - May 2021
Blue Ridge Community College recently introduced a new course to its multitude of health care offerings: Dialysis Technician. With available scholarship assistance, this course could be free for students. 

This course teaches the skills for employment as a dialysis technician in hospitals, renal dialysis facilities, and clinics upon successful completion. It will also prepare students with the theoretical, technical, and clinical skills needed to maintain equipment and provide patient care to those being treated for chronic renal diseases. 

“The new Dialysis Technician course at Blue Ridge will partner with Davita Dialysis to teach students the knowledge and skills they need to maintain equipment and provide patient care to those being treated for chronic renal diseases. Becoming a hemodialysis technician can be the start of a very rewarding job," Blue Ridge Allied Health program coordinator Heather Stewart said.

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Psoriasis treatment is associated with a reduced risk of some infections and improved survival in patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), according to recent study findings.

Patients with ESKD and psoriasis may be at greater risk for infection due to chronic vascular access and epidermal dysfunction, in addition to other factors, Wendy B. Bollag, PhD, of the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, and colleagues explained.

Of 866,828 patients on hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis in the 2004-2011 US Renal Data System (USRDS), 8911 (1.0%) had psoriasis. In adjusted analyses, a psoriasis diagnosis, compared with no psoriasis diagnosis, was significantly associated with an increased risk for 9 common infections in the ESKD population.

Psoriasis treatment significantly reduced the risk of some of these infections and was associated with improved survival, Dr. Bollag and her peers reported in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences.

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Roxadustat — the furthest-advanced agent from a new oral drug class for treating anemia in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) — has now shown efficacy and safety in a sextet of phase 3 trials that collectively randomized more than 8000 patients worldwide, including patients who were dialysis dependent as well as patients who had not yet progressed to dialysis.

Roxadustat's efficacy was "demonstrated across the progression of CKD" compared with placebo in nondialysis-dependent patients, and compared with epoetin alfa (Epogen, Procrit) in dialysis-dependent patients, said Robert Provenzano, MD.

Next up for roxadustat (Evrenzo) is a US Food and Drug Administration advisory committee meeting scheduled for July to assess whether the drug merits approval as the first agent from the class of oral hypoxia-inducible factor prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors (HIF-PHI).

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