A project which aims to improve the care of kidney transplant recipients in the crucial hours after undergoing the procedure is making encouraging progress.
Dr Karthik Venkataraman, the inaugural recipient of Kidney, Transplant and Diabetes Research Australia’s Higher Degree by Research (HDR) Scholarship, is investigating how to best manage a patient 24 hours after a kidney transplant.
Currently, there is a lack of evidence-based guidelines for how to best manage patients after receiving their transplant, meaning recipients around Australia are all managed differently.
Commencing his scholarship last January, Dr Venkataraman has made promising inroads with his work.
“Arguably our most exciting project is a world-first clinical trial, looking at whether recovery in a high acuity area after a kidney transplant leads to better post operative results,” he said.
“This trial is in its final weeks of recruitment and hopefully we will have some results to publish in the coming months.
“We are also undertaking a large survey of centres across Australia and New Zealand, in order to get an idea of how different centres look after patients after a transplant operation. This will identify where there may be differences in practice.”
As well as assessing how patients are managed across the country, Dr Venkataraman is also looking at how well the kidney works in the post-op period as an indicator for how long the transplant will last, and if changing certain parameters impacts how the kidney functions.
This project would not have been made possible without the generous support of our donors, and Dr Venkataraman expressed his gratitude for their kindness.
“I would like to sincerely thank all the donors for their support, without who this work would not be possible,” he said.
The study is expected to be completed by September 2025, and we look forward to reporting on the results.
