Researchers at the University of Rochester are conducting clinical trials to learn whether a special vest can help save the lives of people with end-stage kidney disease who suffer sudden cardiac arrest.
Wojciech Zareba, M.D., PhD, the study's principal investigator, said once patients with late-stage renal failure start dialysis, they are at high risk of developing irregular heartbeat which can result in sudden cardiac death.
He explained that this is due to higher potassium levels and the transition of toxin levels in their blood following treatment, as well as other conditions that often accompany kidney disease, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
The 4 to 5-year study will look at whether patients who wear a vest equipped with a defibrillator have a better survival rate than those who do not wear the device. It works to restart the heart just as an AED (Automated External Defibrillator ) does, but time is saved because the patient is already wearing the device.
Zareba and his team will be recruiting patients who are in the early stages of dialysis treatment.
"Why? Because we know that in the first six to eight months of dialysis, patients are at particularly high risk of developing this cardiac arrhythmia, and we would like to protect these people," he said.
Zareba said dialysis patients who suffer cardiac arrhythmia have a current survival rate of about 5 percent. He believes the wearable defibrillator could increase the survival rate to 60 to 70 percent.
Researchers plan to enroll up to 2,600 dialysis patients for the study. Half will be assigned to wear the defibrillator and the other half will undergo treatment without the device.
Funding for the clinical research is provided by ZOLL, the company that manufactures the LifeVest wearable defibrillator that will be tested in the trial.
More than 400,000 people have end-stage kidney disease in the U.S. That number is expected to increase to more than 2 million in the next 15 years due to the aging population and the number of Americans who have type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure - two conditions commonly associated with renal failure.
