Empowered Patient Podcast Risk Assessment Tool Identifies Patients Most Likely to Experience Kidney Disease Progression with James McCullough Renalytix
James McCullough, CEO of Renalytix, is focused on preventive care for those most likely to get chronic kidney disease. Diagnostics and risk assessment of patients earlier in the disease cycle emphasize maintaining kidney health rather than managing complications from late-stage kidney disease and kidney failure. Using a machine-learning algorithm to look at blood-based biomarkers and EMR data, the KidneyIntelX system provides the clinician with a risk score and guidelines for treatment.
James elaborates, "There are five stages of kidney disease. We're focused on the early stages, so stages 1 through 3, before the majority of damage is done to the kidney. When you have therapeutic intervention, lifestyle intervention, you get specialist involvement, you have a pretty good shot at slowing or stopping the progression of the disease into the later stages, stages 4 and 5, where your options start to become limited."
"With KidneyIntelX now, for the first time, we can start to see risk assessment taking place at the front end of the chronic disease with the primary care doctor. If you score high by KidneyIntelX, you are roughly 20 times more likely to experience significant kidney function decline over the next five years versus if you score low by KidneyIntelX. The stratification, for the first time, becomes a very powerful tool that we can implement very simply at the primary care level, where most people with early-stage kidney disease and diabetes are being seen."
"This is an advanced prognosis. Prognosis is the key to controlling chronic disease, especially widespread chronic disease because you can't treat everybody. We know that probably close to half the people with kidney disease and diabetes aren't progressing over the next few years. The real question becomes because there are so many people with diabetes and kidney disease. and healthcare resources are limited, who do you treat? Who should you be concerned about now to be able to give drug treatments, specialist referrals, and significant lifestyle modifications?"
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