{"id":3776,"date":"2016-01-20T12:16:25","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T17:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/52.229.122.34\/en\/?p=3776"},"modified":"2021-02-17T11:37:04","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T16:37:04","slug":"when-drugs-dont-work-research-spares-kidney-transplant-patients-from-unnecessary-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/uncategorized\/when-drugs-dont-work-research-spares-kidney-transplant-patients-from-unnecessary-risks\/","title":{"rendered":"When drugs don\u2019t work: research spares kidney transplant patients from unnecessary risks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ottawa resident Jim Ward, who received a kidney transplant from his brother in 2001, took part in an important eight-year study that showed a commonly prescribed drug doesn\u2019t work nearly as well as previously thought and could potentially harm kidney transplant recipients.<\/em><\/p>\n

On Valentine\u2019s Day 2001, Ottawa soccer coach and marathon runner Jim Ward received a kidney transplant from his brother after an infection damaged his own. After his successful recovery, Valerie Cronin, a research coordinator at The Ottawa Hospital, asked the then-51-year-old if he would like to join a study of kidney transplant patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mind said \u2018no,\u2019 but my heart said \u2018yes\u2019 because the transplant went so well for me and I wanted to give back,\u201d said Ward. Getting involved in the eight-year study turned out to be a great experience for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very professional, very well done. I did feel like I was accomplishing something. And how could I say \u2018no\u2019 to free parking?\u201d Ward joked.<\/p>\n

Like most transplant patients, Ward had to take dozens of pills every day to keep his new kidney in working order.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, not all of those pills were helpful. The study<\/a> by Drs. Greg Knoll and Dean Fergusson showed that one common drug called ramipril has no benefit to kidney transplant patients, and can even have dangerous side-effects. Dr. Knoll is a kidney transplant specialist at The Ottawa Hospital, where Dr. Fergusson leads the clinical epidemiology research program<\/p>\n

Previous studies showed that ramipril reduced the chance of kidney failure in high-risk patients who had not had transplants. For years doctors assumed the drug would also be good for transplant patients, and often prescribed it to them despite limited evidence.<\/p>\n

But the study by Drs. Knoll and Fergusson, who are both professors at the University of Ottawa as well, showed that when transplant patients did take the drug, it made no difference to their kidney health. In fact, the patients who took ramipril were more likely to have low blood counts, known as anemia, which can contribute to transplant failure and even death.<\/p>\n

This discovery will have a significant impact on other high-risk kidney transplant patients in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect that this will change medical practice around the world and spare patients from taking unnecessary and potentially harmful medication,\u201d said Dr. Knoll.<\/p>\n

As for Ward, his kidneys are working perfectly and he\u2019s still running marathons 15 years after the transplant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very active, and I can\u2019t ask for more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ottawa resident Jim Ward, who received a kidney transplant from his brother in 2001, took part in an important eight-year study that showed a commonly prescribed drug doesn\u2019t work nearly as well as previously thought and could potentially harm kidney transplant recipients. On Valentine\u2019s Day 2001, Ottawa soccer coach and marathon runner Jim Ward received […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":3777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}