Nephrologist Hu Xiaopeng: We should take care of our kidneys like this

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 22 (Reporter Ma Zhiyao) The “World Kidney Day” proposed by the International Society of Nephrology and other organizations on the second Thursday of March every year aims to make people Recognize the importance of early detection and prevention of kidney disease. On the occasion of the 17th World Kidney Day, the reporter interviewed Hu Xiaopeng, chief physician of the Department of Urology of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University.

In the 1960s, my country achieved a “zero breakthrough” in successful cases of kidney transplantation. Currently, more than 10,000 kidney transplants are performed every year in my country, the second largest in the world.

Hu Xiaopeng introduced that at present, my country’s clinical diagnosis and treatment level, especially the clinical technical level of kidney transplantation, is generally in line with international standards, and even “leading” in some aspects, but the mechanism of rejection reaction, anti-rejection drug research and development, How to successfully induce immune tolerance and other research fields still need to catch up. “Some drugs and equipment are not the first to develop in my country, and there is still a certain gap between the basic research and the international community.”

Hu Xiaopeng said At present, the discipline of organ transplantation is mainly faced with difficulties such as shortage of organ sources, long-term survival of grafts, and improvement of organ preservation techniques. How to solve the related pain points has become a key bottleneck for the development of this discipline in my country.

“Traditional concepts such as ‘the body grows and the skin depends on the parents’ is an important factor restricting the number of sources of organ donation.” Hu Xiaopeng said that in recent years, there are currently about 6,000 kidney organ donations per year in my country. , although it has been greatly improved compared with the past, but there is still a certain distance from the actual demand. How to break the stereotype and eliminate the concerns of potential donors is the work that social and psychological experts and ethics experts should do in the future.

“Many patients ask how long the transplanted kidney can survive after the transplant. Our hospital started this operation in 1993. Some patients’ transplanted kidneys have been working normally for 30 years. The average level of long-term survival is generally about ten years.” How to further prolong the survival time of the transplanted kidney in the recipient is a difficulty for organ transplant doctors and researchers engaged in related drug research and development.

In addition, how to reduce or even avoid “ischemia-reperfusion injury” so that the donor organ can function immediately after transplantation into the recipient, and how to induce immune tolerance using methods such as stem cell infusion , so as to reduce or even avoid the use of immunosuppressants, which is also the direction that the transplantation discipline will overcome difficulties in the future.

According to the data, the average prevalence of kidney disease in the world is slightly more than 10%. According to the population ratio, more than 100 million people in China may suffer from kidney disease. However, the results of the questionnaire showed that The awareness rate of related diseases is only 12%. The high prevalence rate and low awareness rate have brought certain difficulties to the prevention and treatment of kidney disease.

“Some common kidney diseases, such as stones, are actually very easy to prevent.” Hu Xiaopeng said, “In my country, diabetic nephropathy has almost become the main cause of kidney failure, which requires us to have regular physical examinations, healthy diet, and reasonable exercise. , control weight, control blood pressure, blood sugar, blood lipids, do not abuse drugs, etc.”