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Bioartificial organs
Published in Ronald L. Fournier, Basic Transport Phenomena in Biomedical Engineering, 2017
As shown earlier in Figure 8.3, the functional unit of the kidney is called the nephron. Recall that it consists of two major components, the glomerulus and the renal tubule. The glomerulus is responsible primarily for the selective ultrafiltration of waste products from the blood. It must perform this waste removal function and at the same time retain essential blood components such as albumin. The glomerular filtrate that is formed then passes through the various segments of the renal tubule. The specialized segments of the renal tubule regulate the amount of urine that is formed and its final solute composition. The renal tubule cells therefore have the ability to control both the fluid reabsorption rate and the transport rate of an individual solute. This is accomplished in such a manner so as to maintain homeostasis with regard to the body’s fluid volume and overall composition. Because of the chemical sensing and selective transport ability of the renal tubule, it is unlikely that this sophisticated function could ever be reproduced artificially. Accordingly, artificial kidneys or hemodialyzers will primarily function at the level of simply removing waste products by dialysis.
Occupational toxicology of the kidney
Published in Chris Winder, Neill Stacey, Occupational Toxicology, 2004
The renal artery enters the hilus of the kidney and branches into the interlobular, arcuate and interlobular arteries. The interlobular artery gives rise to the afferent arterioles which supply blood to the glomerulus. The glomerulus consists of a glomerular tuft separated from the surrounding Bowman’s capsule by Bowman’s space. The glomerular tuft is composed of capillaries separated by mesangium and lined by visceral epithelium that consists of specialised epithelial cells. This epithelium continues as the parietal epithelium which lines the inner aspect of Bowman’s capsule and then as tubular epithelium. Blood passes through the afferent arteriole into the glomerulus, where it is filtered by selective passage of water, electrolytes, low molecular weight proteins and other compounds, including waste products. Glomerular filtration is based mainly on molecular size, with retention of plasma proteins with a molecular weight higher than 40,000; net charge and shape also are factors in retention, with filtration of anionic molecules being somewhat restricted.
Hemodialysis Membranes for Treatment of Chronic Kidney Disease: State-of-the-Art and Future Prospects
Published in Sundergopal Sridhar, Membrane Technology, 2018
N.L. Gayatri, N. Shiva Prasad, Sundergopal Sridhar
Functional ability of the kidney is quantified in terms of Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR), which is defined as the volume of fluid filtered from the renal glomerular capillaries into the Bowman’s capsules per unit time. Mathematically it is defined by Equation 10.1:
Mouse-to-human transfer learning for glomerulus segmentation
Published in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering: Imaging & Visualization, 2023
Luiz Souza, Jefferson Silva, Paulo Chagas, Angelo Duarte, Washington LC-dos Santos, Luciano Oliveira
Among many kidney structures, this work focuses on the glomerulus, a roughly spherical network formed by tiny blood capillaries responsible for blood filtration. Given its primary function, the location and segmentation of glomeruli are valuable information extracted from a kidney WSI. Since localising glomeruli is time-consuming and error-prone, a promising alternative arises with the development of an automatic glomerular segmentation approach, providing a fast and reliable supportive tool for the pathologists’ decision-making pipeline. In this context, we highlight the challenge of gathering a large amount of annotated data, which can be even harder to obtain if one considers human biopsies. From thatthis, a question naturally arises: is it possible to segment human glomerulus from WSIs by using a model trained with just mouse glomerular images?
A new one-dimensional copper(II) coordination polymer: crystal structure and treatment activity on diabetic nephropathy
Published in Inorganic and Nano-Metal Chemistry, 2021
Pan-Pan Lin, Qiao-Ling Xie, Ling-Wei Chen
Diabetes is the main cause of end-stage renal disease, and diabetic nephropathy is a disease characterized by persistent microalbumin in diabetic patients. At first, the glomerular filtration rate of patients is high, which is twice over that of normal people.[1] Some patients occasionally combined with microalbuminuria, and after about 20 years, the patient gradually develops a decline in glomerular filtration rate, mild proteinuria, followed by moderate proteinuria;[2] in the final stage, this disease will develop into severe urine protein, accompanied by chronic renal insufficiency and nephrotic syndrome, eventually develops into end-stage renal disease.
Mathematical and statistical model misspecifications in modelling immune response in renal transplant recipients
Published in Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering, 2018
H. T. Banks, R. A. Everett, Shuhua Hu, Neha Murad, H. T. Tran
Kidneys are an important pair of organs that extract waste from the blood, regulate body fluids, form urine, and aid in other important bodily functions. Blood flows into tiny blood vessel clusters in the kidney, called glomeruli, where the waste is filtered out to become urine. Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is often used as an indicator for kidney health and function; it measures the rate at which the kidney clears toxic waste from the blood. A GFR number of 90 or less in adults is used as an indicator for kidney disease [1]. The compound serum creatinine is produced as a by-product of muscle metabolism (breakdown of a product called phosphocreatine in the muscle) and excreted in the urine. A low production of creatinine is an indicator of good renal health and is often used as a surrogate to asses GFR. Chronic kidney disease (CKD), also commonly known as chronic kidney failure, is characterized by gradual but progressive loss of kidney function. The fifth stage of CKD, called end stage renal disease (ESRD), occurs when kidney function reduces to less than 15% and leads to permanent kidney failure [1]. Patients with ESRD have two choices of therapy – dialysis or kidney transplantation. Kidney transplantation is often chosen since transplants (grafts) can improve survival and lower health care costs compared to dialysis [2]. As of November 2016, there are currently 121,678 people waiting for life-saving organ transplants in the US, of which 100,791 await kidney transplants [1]. Donor kidneys can originate from either living or deceased donors. In 2011–2012, 50.8% of patients who received deceased donor transplants experienced graft failure at 10 years, compared to 34.7% for those receiving a living donor transplant [3].