Overview
- Japan’s National Cancer Center and collaborators report in a US cancer-society journal that chronic kidney injury in long-term dialysis drives hepatocyte growth factor stimulation of proximal tubule cells.
- These stimulated cells proliferate into cysts that accumulate genetic abnormalities and can progress to tumors unique to dialysis patients.
- An analysis of kidney tissue from 101 patients found that dialysis-associated tumors lack most mutations typical of common renal cancers.
- Japan has more than 340,000 chronic dialysis patients, and roughly nine in ten people after a decade on dialysis develop acquired cystic kidney disease.
- Researchers cautioned that only a small percentage of cystic cases become malignant and called for accumulating more cases with clinicians to evaluate surveillance and treatment options.