R.I. Hospital researcher receives $19.6M grant

PROVIDENCE – A kidney specialist at Rhode Island Hospital has been awarded a $19.6 million federal grant to fund another five years of research into ways to reduce heart attack and stroke in kidney transplant patients.

Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, who is also an associate professor of medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, has been leading the Folic Acid for Vascular Outcome Reduction in Transplantation (FAVORIT) trial at the hospital since 2002.

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Rhode Island Hospital is one of 20 sites in the United States and Canada participating in this double-blind, randomized controlled clinical trial, designed to evaluate whether lowering levels of an amino acid known as homocysteine by using vitamin supplements such as folic acid can reduce cardiovascular disease in kidney transplant recipients.

Patients with chronic kidney disease, including those who have received kidney transplants, are at high risk for cardiovascular disease because they have elevated total homocysteine levels. Folic acid and other B vitamins help break homocysteine down.

Although the trial focuses on kidney transplant recipients, its outcome could have implications for the treatment of a much larger population with chronic kidney disease, Bostom said in a statement.

“With a better understanding of why these patients are at significant risk for cardiovascular disease, we can develop more effective ways to prevent and treat it, enabling us to improve the overall health – as well as the quality of life – of people with chronic kidney disease,” he said.

In 2006, more than 17,000 people in the United States received a kidney transplant. About 20 million Americans – or one in nine adults – have chronic kidney disease, and another 20 million are at increased risk. Kidney transplant recipients have nearly twice the incidence of cardiovascular disease as the general population. Patients will be followed until June 2010.

“Under Dr. Bostom’s leadership, the FAVORIT trial will undoubtedly play a major role in how we approach cardiovascular disease in patients with chronic kidney disease,” Dr. Lance Dworkin, chief of the division of kidney disease and hypertension at Rhode Island Hospital and a professor of medicine at Alpert Medical School, said in the news release.

“Patients and physicians will both benefit from this trial, even if the research suggests that lowering homocysteine does not, in fact, reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.”

More information about the FAVORIT trial is available at www.niddk.nih.gov.