Drug may reduce kidney risks in tests, study says

BOSTON (Reuters) -- A drug already used to treat a variety of lung diseases and overdoses of painkiller medicines has been found to prevent the kidney damage that sometimes occurs when chemicals are injected into the body to enhance the clarity of X-rays and CAT scans.

A team of German researchers led by Dr. Martin Tepel of Ruhr-Universitat Bochum in Herne, found that giving the antioxidant drug acetylcysteine the day before and the day of the CAT scan protected the body against kidney damage caused by contrast agents, which make X-rays easier to read.

Such kidney problems usually appear in people who are already suffering from some form of kidney damage, often as a result of diabetes.

In tests on the 83 patients who needed a CAT scan but whose kidneys were already weakened by illness, blood measurements revealed that only 2 percent of the people who got the acetylcysteine had a reduction in kidney function versus 21 percent who received a placebo.

In an editorial in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, where the Tepel study appears, doctors at the University of Arkansas, call the results "encouraging," but preliminary.

"The low cost of acetylcysteine, its general availability and ease of administration, its limited side effects, and the importance of the problem are all compelling reasons to pursue such studies," said the Arkansas doctors, Robert Safirstein, Lucia Andrade and Jose Vieira.

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