UIC researchers to lead large-scale noninvasive study of chronic kidney disease

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago are looking to better understand the causes and consequences of chronic kidney disease with a noninvasive imaging study, the largest of its kind in the United States.

With $3.8 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Anand Srivastava, the project’s principal investigator, and his team will use kidney functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in patients with chronic kidney disease who are also undergoing a kidney biopsy and are enrolled in the NIH-funded Kidney Precision Medicine Project.

A kidney biopsy provides vital information about the chronic scarring in a patient’s kidneys, but it’s an invasive procedure that carries risks. The kidney fMRI scans will assess blood flow, oxygenation and scarring in the kidneys of each patient without an invasive procedure. Then the researchers will compare the scans with information from biopsies to determine how effective kidney fMRI scans are at detecting chronic scarring in the kidneys.

“Chronic kidney disease is on the rise, and this has devastating consequences as it can lead to cardiovascular disease and progression to end-stage kidney disease, which results in the need for dialysis or kidney transplantation, and then early death,” said Srivastava, associate professor of medicine in the College of Medicine. “Part of the challenge is that we need new ways or strategies to develop new therapies.”

Srivastava and his team will also determine whether kidney fMRI markers can forecast a person’s risk of kidney function decline over time.

When the kidneys are injured, there can be insufficient blood flow and oxygenation, Srivastava said. This can lead to scarring, which can lead to worsening kidney function over time.

This study will be the largest kidney fMRI study in patients with chronic kidney disease in the United States, Srivastava said. More than 400 patients across eight testing sites are participating in the study.

“If we’re able to demonstrate strong associations for the kidney fMRI biomarkers and scarring, then it would give more confidence to use these types of biomarkers in future research, and hopefully, with further refinement and replication, to move into the clinical realm.”

The study will also use artificial intelligence algorithms to find patterns, textures and characteristics that can’t be seen with the eye but which could serve as digital fingerprints of chronic kidney disease.

“The idea would be to see if these digital fingerprints of disease improve our ability to identify the lesions in the kidney or people at risk of kidney function decline over time,” Srivastava said.

Additional UIC researchers on the project include Xiaohong Joe Zhou, Karen Xie and Fang Zhu from the College of Medicine and Hua Yun Chen from the School of Public Health. 

Collaborators are part of the Kidney Precision Medicine Project, funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and are located at Boston Medical Center, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, UT Southwestern Medical Center, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Arizona and the University of Minnesota.