KCA-ASCO Young Investigator Award

KCA and the and the ASCO Grants Selection Committee announce the selection of the 2007 Young Investigator Award:Patricia Tang, MD, Princess Margaret HospitalAbstractWith the advent of anti-angiogenic therapies (AAT) for cancer treatment, a number of adverse effects have been identified in patients; importantly these include proteinuria (due to disruption of the glomerular filtration barrier) and hypertension.    Hypertension appears to be a class effect of AAT, whereas proteinuria has been reported with bevacizumab, VEGF Trap, and AZD2171.  The physiological mechanisms underlying the hypertension and proteinuria caused by anti-angiogenic therapies are not well understood.Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A expression is maintained in a few specialized microvascular beds in the adult including the kidney glomerulus.  When the VEGF-A gene is deleted from podocytes of adult mice, mice develop proteinuria, hypertension, and glomerular disease.  Strikingly, biopsies taken from 3 patients who developed nephrotic range proteinuria after starting AAT, demonstrate the identical renal lesion.  The similarity between genetic and pharmacologic knockdown of VEGF-A in mice and patients, respectively, suggest that the side effects are due to "on target effects" from anti-VEGF treatment.This clinical study will characterize the renal and blood pressure changes in patients treated with AZD2171 or VEGF Trap on phase II trials conducted through the Pri...
Source: Kidney Cancer Association - Category: Urology & Nephrology Source Type: news