Every year, approximately 395,000 coronary artery bypass graft surgeries are conducted in the Unites States, 30% of which are complicated by acute kidney injury (AKI). Patients developing AKI after cardiac surgery have higher mortality rates and prolonged postoperative hospital stay.
The market for AKI therapy was $955 million in 2009, and has been projected to reach $1.4 billion in 2014. So far, no FDA-approved drugs to prevent or treat AKI are available in the market.
Preclinical studies:
Recombinant (r) MFG-E8 increases survival after renal ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. Compared with vehicle (normal saline), treatment with a single intraperitoneal injection containing rMFG-E8 (0.4µg/20g) at the beginning of reperfusion improved the 60-hour survival rate from 44% to 73%. Survival rates were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method (n = 15–18 per group) and compared by using the log-rank test.
Recombinant (r) MFG-E8 prevents renal function loss after renal I/R injury. 20h after reperfusion, creatinine serum values were markedly increased in the vehicle group and normal in the rMFG E8 group. Data are expressed as means ± SE (n = 8–11/group) and compared using one-way ANOVA and Student-Newman-Keuls test; *P < 0.05 versus Sham group; # P < 0.05 versus Vehicle group.