Experts discuss future research on functional decline after partial nephrectomy

In this video, Carlos Muñoz-Lopez and Steven C. Campbell, MD, PhD, highlight potential future research based on the study, “Parenchymal volume analysis to assess longitudinal functional decline following partial nephrectomy,” for which they served as the lead and senior authors, respectively. Muñoz-Lopez is a 4th-year medical student at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, and Campbell is the residency program director and a professor of surgery at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

Video Transcript:

Muñoz-Lopez: One of the things that we want to look at long-term is how the kidney being exposed to limited durations of warm ischemia compared to no ischemia at all affects longitudinal atrophy. One of the things that we want to look for in the future is a good control group, and that would be a patient who has had no exposure to ischemia or the partial nephrectomy was done off clamp. In these patients, we could look at a comparator group of limited warm ischemia and see if there is a difference in their longitudinal atrophy after accounting for some of the comorbidities that we know accentuate their functional decline.

Campbell: One comment is that [in] our study we had a lot of cold ischemia and a lot of warm ischemia. But like most centers, we try to keep that warm ischemia less than 25, or certainly less than 30 or 35 minutes. So like today, when we say, well, maybe ischemia didn't do that much, that's only in the context of limited warm ischemia. If you were to get out until an hour or more of warm ischemia, you'd probably see some more negative effects.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.