Gastrointestinal (GI) upset is a common source of discomfort for patients with cancer and can have a large effect on overall quality of life if not tended to appropriately. GI upset can be related to dysfunction of the GI tract because of the cancer or as a result of treatment. Different types of GI upset include loss of appetite, nausea, pain, constipation, diarrhea, and acid reflux. If these issues are not addressed, serious complications may ensue, such as dehydration and malnutrition.

Treatment and Prevention of GI Upset:

Working with the multidisciplinary care team to create an individualized plan that delineates how to prevent and treat GI upset can be essential to minimizing discomfort and optimizing overall quality of life. Open communication can facilitate many useful methods of treatment, including appropriate medication. There are a number of medications that can help reduce GI upset including medications to prevent symptoms and medications that address symptoms as they are happening. On-going communication with the multidisciplinary care team can ensure that proper medications and dosages are being prescribed.

Working with a registered dietitian can also be immensely helpful in reducing GI distress. The role of a registered dietitian includes helping patients become or stay adequately nourished and hydrated by working closely with the patient to set individualized goals and create treatment plans that are tailored to the patient’s specific needs. These plans are based on the best available research. As a safety precaution, it should be noted that anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, however a master’s degree, over 1,000 hours of supervised training, and passing a board examination are just a few of the current requirements to become a registered dietitian. These standards guarantee that the person providing nutrition recommendations has been thoroughly trained and committed to staying up to date with the best available research in order to provide safe and effective care. This is especially important for patients with cancer who are at risk for malnutrition and dehydration.

When it comes to nutrition while undergoing cancer treatment, restricting intake and avoiding food that is typically categorized as unhealthy, can be particularly harmful. This is because tolerated foods are often very limited, and getting enough calories is better than being in a deficit. Choosing calorie-dense foods that the patient can tolerate is often very helpful for ensuring adequate nourishment.

Many patients with cancer experience loss of appetite. When this happens, it can be very important to prevent the stomach from becoming empty. This is because an empty stomach can produce hypersecretion of acid within the stomach that can not only cause nausea and make nausea worse but can also cause pain from heartburn and stomachache. Starting the day with food in the stomach can be incredibly helpful as it sets the tone for the rest of the day and can help ease symptoms and prevent them from getting worse. Figuring out which foods the person is able to tolerate more easily is also important for increasing intake. This can look very different from person to person, though there are some foods which tend to be more soothing and some which tend to trigger GI upset more frequently. For patients who struggle with symptoms from a fuller stomach, it can be very helpful to eat and drink smaller more frequent amounts throughout the day. It can also be helpful to eat and drink separately.

Emotional distress can also add to or cause GI upset so working with the multidisciplinary care team to find other methods to cope with emotions such as meditation, yoga, and therapy can also aid in alleviating GI upset.

Movement is another factor that can play a large role in reducing GI discomfort. Activity facilitates movement of the bowels and can greatly improve anxiety which can make GI upset worse.

Staying Hydrated

Staying hydrated is one of the most important considerations for patients who have lost their appetite or have difficulty with adequate intake for any reason. This is because dehydration can lead to dangerous complications including kidney failure. Finding ways to increase fluid intake while minimizing nausea is often key to staying hydrated for patients with cancer. Things like popsicles and shakes can offer nutrition and flavor while also offering water content. It is important to pay attention to how frequently urination is occurring and to notify the doctor if infrequent urination is noticed. This is because infrequent urination can be a symptom of dehydration and other problems.

Healthcare providers can create plans with patients to make sure they are getting enough water throughout the day. This can look like a schedule to drink water or additional fluids provided intravenously. Intravenous fluid can often be administered with treatment, which is a great option for patients having difficulty consuming enough fluid during the day. The average person who does not have diarrhea needs close to 2L of fluid per day. Breaking this down into portioned amounts throughout the day can make consuming recommended amounts a lot less overwhelming and triggering for those who have difficulty drinking a lot at one time.

When to See the Doctor

When patients present with GI upset that is so severe it is causing dehydration or high risk for dehydration, it is important to make sure the correct cause is determined. While many cancer treatments can cause GI upset, assuming the treatment is the cause can lead to other problems being overlooked. It can also lead to symptoms persisting unnecessarily when the issue could have been treated. It is important to work with the gastroenterologist and the oncologist to determine the cause, as each field offers a unique perspective and training that can be helpful in diagnosing.

Supplementing with Poor Intake

Many patients with poor intake use supplements in hopes to improve their nutrition, however supplements in the United States are not regulated for safety and efficacy. There is no guarantee that what is on the label is what is being consumed. Supplements can also interact with medications and may be contraindicated with certain medical conditions. Serious and harmful effects have occurred from taking supplements, and the risk is increased for patients with cancer who are on a variety of medications and have multiple medical conditions. 

Using the Internet

It’s important to proceed with caution when using the internet to get information about remedies of any type. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation on the internet, and even if the information is accurate, it may not be safe for each individual patient.

Nutrition and Recovery

Muscle loss is often a byproduct of weight loss. In recovery, gaining back lost muscle is very important. Muscle mass helps prevent falls, protect bones, and improve metabolism. Getting enough calories and the appropriate amount of the macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates) is important in recovery.

10 Tips for Managing GI-related Symptoms

1. Avoid eating and drinking at the same time if a full stomach trigger symptoms.
2. Consult with your oncologist and GI doctor if symptoms are unmanageable.
3. Work with a registered dietitian to come up with a plan that is tailored to your needs and includes foods you can tolerate and a schedule you can maintain.
4. Small, frequent meals can be helpful for nausea.
5. There are a variety of medications that can help with GI distress including anti-nausea medication.
6. Movement is important for all areas of health including emotional health.
7. Try to eat in an environment where eating is comfortable for you.
8. Music and meditation can be very helpful to reduce GI symptoms that are enhanced by anxiety.
9. Consume foods that are nutrient-dense when possible.
10. Surround yourself with people that lift up your spirits!

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Meet the Panelists:

Dara Kurtz

Dara is a cancer survivor, creator of Crazy Perfect Life, author of Crush Cancer, and founder of The Thrive Podcast with Dara Kurtz and Garth Callaghan. She speaks regularly around the country leading Crush Cancer, Thrive and Self Care Workshops.

Dr. Moshe Shike

Dr. Shike is a gastroenterologist, internist, and nutritionist with a particular interest in cancer prevention at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

What is Supportive Care?

Supportive care involves addressing symptoms, side effects, and mental health concerns to enhance comfort in all areas of life throughout the cancer journey.

Why is Supportive Care Important for Patients with Cancer?

Supportive care is often viewed as secondary to traditional cancer treatment yet is actually one of the most important aspects of care for patients with cancer. This is because it can greatly ease the burden of treatment-related discomfort and be immensely empowering. Incorporating supportive care that addresses elements core to the patient’s identity into treatment plans, provides patients with autonomy, purpose and drive that can greatly enhance overall quality of life. Supportive care should be implemented from diagnosis. While at times, life-threatening issues must take precedence, supportive care should always be considered and integrated thoughtfully into treatment plans.

Who Provides Supportive Care?

Supportive care measures should be provided by each member of the multidisciplinary care team and prioritized throughout each stage of the cancer journey. Multidisciplinary care team members include physicians, nurses, case managers, social workers, dietitians, mental health practitioners, religious leaders and anyone else who provides patient care. The nurse is often the clinician facilitating supportive care. This is because nurses typically spend a substantial amount of time with patients, and on-going assessment of needs is a large part of nursing practice. Through careful assessment, nurses identify patient needs and addresse them to promote care of the whole patient. Nurses can provide supportive care through direct delivery and by coordinating involvement of other practitioners to provide care.

Examples of Supportive Care

Supportive care is specific to the patient and can include side effect management, mental health care, easily accessible communication with providers, alternative therapies, nutrition therapy, advocacy for funding of relevant studies, peer support, exercise, meditation, pain management and managing symptoms of the cancer itself.

Facilitating Supportive Care

Open communication between members of the multidisciplinary team and the patient is essential for optimizing supportive care measures. Every patient is different, so it is of utmost importance for healthcare practitioners to use assessment tools that allow for the full scope of the patient’s needs to be addressed. Several factors can make it challenging for patients to feel comfortable expressing their concerns, making communicating in a way that is tailored to individual needs a vital component of optimizing quality of life.

Peer support can be a critical aspect of supportive care. It is important that peers are in a space where they can support the individual’s needs and that the patient can relate to the peers within the group.

Journaling can also be very helpful when it comes to allocating supportive care. This is because it can be easy to forget symptoms or other concerns that are necessary to address in between doctor’s visits. Journaling also allows for enhanced thought processing which can be very cathartic and revealing.

Rapport between patients and the care team is another important part of supportive care because “good rapport” allows patients to feel comfortable addressing concerns.

It’s recognized that supportive care is not often a high priority research focus. There is evidence that shows that supportive care can have a greater benefit to survivability than FDA-approved treatments that target cancer in certain circumstances.

Traditional Therapies & New Therapies

Both newer treatment options and older treatment options have pros and cons. Different medications are often given with certain types of chemotherapy to minimize side effects and thus provide more comfort to the patient. Open communication about side effects, concerns, and needs is important so that supportive and individualized care can be provided.

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU), Gemcitabine, Taxotere are all traditional therapies that can cause many side effects but also work well to treat a variety of cancers. Immunotherapies or checkpoint inhibitors are newer therapies and can offer few to no side effects for many patients, though are not devoid of risk. These therapies can cause the immune system to become overly activated, resulting in diarrhea, colitis, and liver damage. Steroids can be used to combat these side effects. Another category of cancer treatment is called “targeted therapies.” These therapies target a specific protein or gene to treat cancer. Peeling and dryness of the hands and mouth sores can be caused by targeted therapies. CAR-T cell therapy is another newer therapy that utilizes the patient’s own immune system to attack the cancer cells by removing the patient’s T-cells through apheresis and genetically modify them to specifically target the person’s cancer. This type of therapy is particularly useful in treating many of the blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma. If CAR-T cell therapy causes the immune system to “over attack,” it can cause a cytokine storm which causes the body to become quite ill, requiring hospitalization.

It is important for providers to be able to differentiate between side effects from chemo and cancer symptoms so that the appropriate treatment can be provided. There are a variety of options to mitigate side effects of various cancer treatments including scalp cooling to reduce hair loss and medications to combat nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and low blood counts.

There are also a variety of pain management options including injections, spinal taps, and pills that can help alleviate pain from treatment side effects and cancer itself.

Supportive Care Resources

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/caregivers.html

www.cancercare.org/helpinghand

Cancer Patient Resource Websites

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Meet the Panelists:

Leah Evert

Leah Evert is a registered dietitian, breast cancer survivor and co-founder of The Willow Foundation— a non-profit organization that funds research in alternative practices to enhance quality of life for patients with cancer. She is also a former exercise physiologist, former division one athlete and avid runner who directs a corporate health program for a large pharmaceutical company. Leah was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer in 2017 at the age of 36 and quickly learned that the cancer had spread to her liver, lymph nodes, and lung. She has received over 109 rounds of chemotherapy and 19 rounds of radiation to date. Her inspiring story depicts the essential nature of supportive care when it comes to the overall health of patients with cancer.   

Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes

Dr. Diane Reidy-Lagunes is a gastrointestinal oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering who cares for patients with a variety of gastrointestinal and endocrine cancers including cancers of the large intestine, small intestine, pancreas and adrenal cancer. She is currently involved in neuroendocrine cancer research with a focus on enhancing treatment outcomes for patients. Her experience as an oncologist provides a unique perspective on the importance of supportive care and how it can best be facilitated to optimize quality of life for patients with cancer.

Dave Norkin has far outlived his original doctor’s expectations. It will be 10 years since he was diagnosed. Dr. Diane Reidy specializes in caring for people with gastrointestinal cancers, including neuroendocrine cancer, and has been Dave’s doctor. Together they will discuss what to do after hearing “You have cancer.”

Daniel has a rare form of anal cancer. His mental health advice is spot on. It’s important to take care of what you can control so that you don’t spend as much time thinking about what you can’t. Join CancerLyfe to meet Daniel and others with cancer.

#Lyfebulb #CancerLyfe #nowwhat #RareCancer #JoinCancerLyfe #AnalCancer

Save the boobies

Save the Tatas

Save the Headlights

Not going to lie I have used some of those then I got breast cancer and that changed. There is a lot to say about this on all different levels, shall we start at the top?

Doctors appointments, we instantly loose our sexuality at the endless doctor visits where they are poking and scanning and injecting our breasts. We get used to taking our shirts off in those appointments and it has NOTHING to do with “saving second base” and everything to do with saving the person diagnosed. We lose modesty and become robots in this wicked game.  At the moment when you hear those words “I am sorry you have cancer” you are trying to save yourself from death. The doctors make appointments to have your breasts removed, amputated if you will and you want us to think that is sexy? What the hell? We are removing, disfiguring and altering our breasts not saving them. 

When someone goes through a sex change they are put through counseling to make sure they can handle the changes about to happen.  When we are diagnosed with cancer you are lucky if they even discuss talking to someone. When you are “finished” and say you are depressed they wonder why? UMMMM you just took our breasts, sent us through treatment and for many remove uterus/cervix/ovaries and there is not counseling like those who basically have the same things added and removed. Add the fact that cancer is involved  and let me tell you  we are not thinking about “saving the boobies” we are worried about finding our self in this mess and saving us. How degrading to us that it is made sexual?

Here is a thought when you make this about women you alignment this group that gets breast cancer too, MEN! We have a male population getting breast cancer and we advertise this as women’s disease. Men are diagnosed late in stage and dying yet we make this for the “girls”. I call bullshit on this. We as a society have embarrassed men so much about getting breast cancer that   they do not even want to discuss this with their doctors. Wake the fuck up people this is 2015 it is time for a change!

The emotional aspect of breast cancer is a huge factor. Reminder breast cancer effects us and our hormones big time. I am not talking about the sexual drive hormones but shit what the hell is my body going through. We are women are beautiful, curvy, smart and powerful then we take off our breasts and remove all that “makes” us girls and expect us to embrace these sexy campaigns? How does that even makes sense?? Do you have any idea how all this change effects our body image? We watch and sob over the loss of our breasts like a death. We loose so much from this and gain a new perspective and sex kitten is not one. Fact our breasts no feeling, nothing! So sexy and wanting to ‘save the tatas’ is just stupid!

“Go braless to show support for breast cancer”, ummm excuse me. Let me start with the fact that most of us can not even wear a bra. The scars hurt, we can not find one that fits, and why bother! Second how the hell does that show support? A sexy ad with a tiny girl taking her bra off is not breast cancer awareness it is taking your damn bra off! There is no education in that campaign at all. Did we forget that people die from this? How disrespectful! Did you know this ad comes out every year on the one day Metastatic cancer is highlighted?

Which brings me to my biggest point! Those with metastatic breast cancer are not saving their boobs, they are dying and trying desperately to save themselves. Could society be more disgusting and disrespectful to this dying group? There will be 516,000 deaths as a result of mets and we think ads like “save the headlights” are helping? No they are not-they are muddling the voices that need to be heard. The metastatic community needs all of us to stand together and say “SAVE THE PERSON”. Those with metastatic cancer need our voice, they need to be heard loud.

Breast cancer is not tied in a pretty pink ribbon. It  is filled with anger, pain, side effects, mixed with love and support from those who care and sometimes death-sex ads have no room in this. We need to stop this ridiculous campaigns and use the best ad we have, US! Show the men and women that had breast cancer, show the pain the scars, the truth. How empowering to those DX, how validating and real would that be? Maybe if we took the time to remove the sexual connotation  of this non-sexual disease and focused on those dying and hurting we could actually get somewhere! A wise friend recently said if we stop those from dying and control the metastatic community we could actually get somewhere. She is right and I know CJ would never try to take my tiara. That is not sexy it is just me, the new after cancer and before me!

The last thought is this Dr. Susan Love quote. Stop thinking of cancer patients as success stories when we can only think of us as who we were and how we ave changed. Maybe if we start there we would remove this sexual  crap that seems to “sell” such a painful disease.  Time to start seeing the difference breast cancer does to us and not making it about the degrading part that we are not getting back.

Dr. Susan Love on the collateral damage of cancer: “As physicians, we look at patients with cancer and compare them with people who have died, and pat ourselves on the back because they are alive. But as the patient, you are comparing yourself to how you were before you were treated for cancer. That is the big difference”

The other day a friend sent me a text asking “what is the one thing we wanted from people when you were diagnosed?”. I loved that she asked this years later not because it doesn’t matter anymore but because she still cares enough to be thinking about it. That to me says a lot because the truth is that after the DX we still are living through this every damn day. I still have doctor appointments, I still see my scars and I still think about it coming back, so her question meant the world to me. I often post and blog about “what not to say or things people do that they should not” but hardly ever do we talk about what they got right. I think people are looking for what to bring or what to drop off but honestly we just want to be normal for a fleeting moment. We need that little slice of normalcy when our world is being turned upside down.

The truth is not all the people in your life can make you dinner or take your rotten kids. I learned that from another good friend. One of my BFF’s said to me “Look I can not cook for you and you have too many damn kids so I will take your picture.” At the time I remember thinking “why the hell are we doing this and what the hell are we going to do with them”, well that is all history now. Point is that was what that friend could do for me. Another friend came over and just vacuumed, she said nothing to me just vacuumed. A few of my close friends came by when I was all drugged up and watched crappy movies and laughed and that was wonderful. Some people brought food and took the kids all super awesome. Some stayed away too which I do understand as well but that was for them not for me.

The best thing anyone can do is just be. Be who they are on a regular and not alter that in your life. Maybe that is holding your hand and saying nothing, or dropping off paper products but not staying, or simply taking your kids to school. The fact is when you are going through crap it is really hard to ask for help but you need help so when people just do it the results are a win win. We need so much but require so little. A hug, a hand to hold, a shitty joke to laugh at, inappropriate socks, a cure of cancer-any of those will do. But do something cause doing nothing just hurts. Do not make the person struggling reach out and ask, jump in and be the awesome friend you are. Sometimes they just need their tiara shined, it is that simple.

No on should have to wait ten years for a diagnosis, read about Brittany’s rare cancer story on CancerLyfe.

This is the third session of the Columbia and Lyfebulb patient information and education session series. It is sponsored by Veloxis Pharmaceuticals. 

Panelists and moderators include Mark Hardy, professor of surgery at Columbia university, Dr. Karin Hehenberger, CEO of Lyfebulb and visiting associate researcher at Columbia, Dr. Lloyd Ratner professor and chief of the renal pancreas transplantation service, Mr. Brian Runge, chief coordinator of donors at Columbia University transplant program, Dr. Geoffery Dube, assistant professor of medicine and senior nephrologist on transplant service, and Gretchen Boyd chief coordinator of renal and pancreas transplant program at Columbia. 

This session discusses the preparation after dialysis and starting the transplant process to get listed as well as recruiting a potential living donor.  

To begin conversations with a transplant center as a potential kidney transplant recipient, a patient usually gets referred from a dialysis program, nephrologist, or the patient is able to do research on their own regarding transplant centers, they contact them directly. A few things to keep in mind when choosing a transplant center is the proximity of the center to the recipient’s residence, and the ease of traveling for follow up care consistently. Logistics play a role in the optimal choice. Choosing a transplant center that the patient has good communications and report with is very important as a patient will spend a lot of time with their transplant center through the process of transplant. It’s important to evaluate how responsive and helpful a particular transplant center is. And it’s important to know that a potential recipient can change transplant centers at any time if they chose to do so. There is also a public database called SRTR where anyone can log on and see the clinical outcomes of various transplant centers. This also could be an important factor when choosing a center to go to. 

When it comes to evaluating whether someone is a good candidate to receive a transplant, a potential recipient undergoes a daylong evaluation that consists of various tests and meeting with the transplant coordinator, the surgeon, physician, social worker and others. There will be a lot of information to absorb so it is important for candidates to bring a support person with them to help remember the process and details and also to provide care if needed to the potential recipient. 

During evaluation day as well as subsequently, there will be an abundance of educational materials and discussions with the coordinator, physician, social worker about what to expect after transplant. After evaluation, the team meets to discuss candidacy for the patient and if they are ready for the patient to be listed, then there are additional education classes. For any patient process, the first source of information is the transplant coordinator. 

After someone is deemed eligible for transplant, they are placed on the wait list. The list is the United network of organ sharing (UNOS) waiting list. 

If someone has an unusual or difficult problem, not all transplant center will tackle it, but even if someone is turned down by one transplant center, they can be accepted for a different one. And, someone can be on more than one transplant centers list at one time.

Someone can get taken off the list if their condition worsens and the risk of doing the transplant outweigh the benefits. Additionally, if a patient is abusive to the staff or if they are noncompliant in their care and refuse to take care of themselves this could also lead to removal. Other underlying conditions could be a reason someone gets taken off the list for example due to a cancer diagnosis. This person would have to wait a certain time before getting back on, but it depends on the type of cancer, size, and malignancy. 

Individuals can be on the transplant list waiting for a deceased donor and still also be looking for a living donor. Live donor kidneys work better over the long term, they last about twice as long – 15 to 20 years. This option should be considered as the optimal treatment. If a patient hasn’t had time to find a living donor, they can get listed on deceased donor list and begin searching for a living donor. Donor age limit does matter when it comes to how much longevity the donated kidney has. if its from an old donor the lifetime of that donated kidney won’t be as long. The oldest donor recorded was 83 years old. With that, donor safety is paramount and extensive evaluation will be undergone to ensure the surgery is safe and the donor will be ok with one kidney and both are normally functioning. 

Listen to the webinar and learn more about these conversations and other kinds of support and educational resources for potential kidney transplant recipients. This, and future webinars can be found on transplantLyfe.com. 

The second session of the Lyfebulb-Columbia University/New York-Presbyterian Hospital patient information and education series focused on “Preparation After ESRD Diagnosis” and included the following panelists and moderators:

• Mark A. Hardy, MD, PhD (Hon), FACS – Auchincloss Professor of Surgery, Director Emeritus and Founder of the Transplantation Program at Columbia University Medical Center
• Karin Hehenberger, MD, PhD – Founder and CEO of Lyfebulb and visiting associate researcher at Columbia University
• Syed Ali Husain, MD – Assistant Professor of Medicine at Columbia Vagelos College of P&S 
• Maya K. Rao, MD – Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia Vagelos College of P&S, Director of Chronic Kidney Disease Program 
• Gerald Appel, MD – Professor (Tenured) of Medicine at Columbia Vagelos College of P&S, Director of Glomerular Disease Center

This session covered topics such as living with end stage renal disease, how to prepare for dialysis and transplant, and how dialysis and transplant affect the quality of a kidney disease patients’ life. 

As much as 15% of adults have chronic kidney disease, which is roughly one in every seven people. Just last year, 150,000 patients started treatment for kidney disease. 

It is important for patients with kidney disease to begin discussing and learning about the possibility of dialysis and transplant as early as possible. The progression of disease is variable between patients, but when someone begins to show symptoms of high potassium levels and fluid retention, it is time to consider starting dialysis. At this time, the kidney is functioning at about 20% or less capacity. 

Dialysis helps those with kidney disease by cleaning or filtering the blood artificially when the kidneys are not able to perform the function properly. There are different types of dialysis – hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. Hemodialysis is done at a center, where blood is removed from the body and clean blood is returned through the veins. This is the default method of dialysis, even though most people would prefer the convenience of home care when receiving dialysis. 

Peritoneal dialysis allows for that convenience. During peritoneal dialysis, fluid is filtered into the body through the stomach which circulates and cleans the body of toxins, Then, the fluid is extracted along with the toxins. This method allows for flexibility with travel and daily functions and can be done at home during the night. However, this dialysis does require some training and assistance from a caregiver so the patient must have a certain level of responsibility and independence. Furthermore, it is completed seven days a week. This type of dialysis is only done for about 10% of patients in the United States, while in other countries, it is the primary modality. There is no evidence to support one type over the other, but peritoneal dialysis is gentler on the body and does not cause low blood pressure or fatigue. 

Normal life can be sustained while on dialysis. That being said, children and busy adults may not be the best candidates, because hemodialysis can interfere with school and work.

When it comes to transplantation, about one-third of patients are listed for a transplant before dialysis. It is important for medical professionals to begin asking patients early if they have potential donors and for patients to begin considering all avenues. 

Educating patients about both transplantation and dialysis at the same time helps minimize the sense of feeling overwhelmed and/or potential denial when the patient is facing difficult decisions in their care, but transplantation is the ultimate goal for those with end stage renal disease. 

In the long run, transplantation is the best option for quality and extension of life for any patient that is eligible. The long-term effects of dialysis aren’t great – especially for those in kidney failure due to diabetes. These patients have a particularly negative experience and benefit greatly from transplantation. For patients who are hesitant, education is extremely important.

The good news is that the future of kidney disease is bright as there are a number of new drugs available to slow kidney disease. This is an exciting time for research into wearables, as well as stem cell therapies. Thankfully, there is a lot of hope for the nephrology community. 
Watch the full webinar here to learn more about innovations and research involving dialysis and kidney transplants! View past webinars in this series and register for future webinars at transplantlyfe.com/webinars.