Glomerulonephritis

WHY IS THIS RESEARCH BEING CONDUCTED? Membranous glomerulonephritis (MN) is an autoimmune disease that affects the kidneys through autoantibodies, meaning that antibodies produced by your body attack your own kidney cells. The appearance of these autoantibodies can be explained in part by a disruption in the immune response. Patients with this disease are treated with immunosuppressive drugs such as rituximab. The aim of this treatment is to reduce the production of all antibodies, including those responsible for the disease. Despite this treatment, some patients may experience a relapse of the disease. These relapses can be complicated by infections, blood clots in the blood vessels, and, in the long term, can lead to kidney failure and an increased cardiovascular risk. Relapses can also have an impact on patients' social and professional lives. Dapagliflozin is a diuretic medication, which means that it is used to increase urine production and eliminate excess salt and water from the body to reduce edema (swelling). It is currently prescribed and authorized for patients with type 2 diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease. This treatment has been shown to reduce the amount of proteins in the urine and protect the kidneys and cardiovascular system in patients with chronic kidney disease. A study has also shown that dapagliflozin may have an effect on the immune response. WHAT DOES IT INVOLVE? The aim of our study will be to evaluate the efficacy of dapagliflozin in reducing disease autoantibodies and preventing relapses. This research will be conducted at the Nice University Hospital and the Nîmes University Hospital. We expect to 20 patients to be recruited with an anti-PLA2R1 positive MN. Participation in the study will last 6 months. The research is funded by Nice University Hospital. WHAT IS THE TREATMENT BEING STUDIED? It is dapagliflozin, a drug that is increasingly used routinely in patients with nephrotic syndrome (including MN) for its ability to reduce protein in the urine. Its effect on the immune system in MN has not yet been studied

To determine the nephroprotective potential of treatment with sparsentan in (1: Cohort A) patients newly-diagnosed with immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) (ie, incident patients) who have not received prior angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) therapy, and in (2: Cohort B) patients with recurrent IgAN following kidney transplantation.

The purpose of this study is to determine if zigakibart is safe and effective for long-term use in patients with immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN). This is an extension study for patients who have already completed an another zigakibart study.

The purpose of the study is to evaluate prospectively the impact of an electronic health record (EHR) alert on primary care providers' (PCP) referral to Nephrology of Geisinger patients with high risk signs (blood and protein in the urine) of glomerulonephritis. This will help quantify the relative effectiveness of EHR alerts on PCPs' referral patterns.

Idiopathic immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common biopsy-proven glomerulonephritis in the world. Approximately 40% of IgAN patients reach end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) 20 years after their kidney biopsy. The high prevalence of ESKD suggests the need to move from a generalized therapy for all patients to personalized therapy. Many RCTs have been conducted stratifying patients based on the laboratory findings (serum creatinine, eGFR and daily proteinuria). In contrast, data from the kidney biopsy has been used only for clinical diagnosis. Therefore, IgAN patients with active or chronic renal lesions have not been equally distributed in experimental and control arms of the randomized clinical trials (RCTs) Our clinical study of IgAN (CLIgAN) is a multicentre, prospective, controlled and open-label randomized clinical trial based on patients' stratification at the time of their kidney biopsy. The investigators will consider, first, the type of renal lesions followed by the serum creatinine values, eGFR and proteinuria. IgAN patients with active renal lesions (n=132) will be enrolled in the first RCT (ACIgAN) in which they will receive corticosteroids (pulse therapy) plus oral corticosteroids combined with RASB or RASB followed by oral corticosteroids. IgAN patients with chronic or moderate renal lesions at high or very high risk of chronic renal disease (n=294) will be enrolled in the second RCT (CHRONIgAN) in which they will receive the SGLT2 inhibitor combined with RASB compared with RASB combined with oral corticosteroids. Using this approach, the investigators hypothesize that patients could receive personalized therapy based on renal lesions to ensure that the right drug gets to the right patient at the right time. Recently, we developed a Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) tool using artificial intelligence (artificial neural networks) to identify IgAN patients at high risk of developing ESKD. The IgAN tool (DialCheck) was validated in a retrospective cohort of IgAN patients but not in a prospective clinical study. The investigators propose to measure the power of the DiaCheck tool in patients enrolled in both RCTs to determine whether personalized therapy can slow the decline of the renal function to delay the ESKD. The CLIgAN study also includes a cutting-edge molecular study for precision therapy (PRECIgAN).

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if drug daratumumab works to treat kidney diseases other than AL-amyloidosis that fall under the category of monoclonal gammopathy of renal significance (MGRS). The main questions it aims to answer are: Does daratumumab have an effect on the patients' renal function or the amount of proteinuria? Does daratumumab have an effect on the hematological endpoints evaluated by minimal residual disease (MRD) and the difference between involved and uninvolved free light chain (dFLC)? Also changes in quality of life (according to EORTC QLQ-C30) and mechanism of complement system activation are evaluated. The number of patiets with partial or very good partial hematological remission and the number of patients with adverse events related to daratumumab are also recorded.

Idiopathic Nephrotic Syndrome is a rare disease of the kidneys, which typically affects children. For most affected children there is the need of a prolonged treatment with drugs reducing the activity of the immune system, also resulting in many side effects. Those patients, who do not respond to treatment, are at risk of kidney damage and of dialysis or kidney transplantation. It is currently impossible to predict the response to treatment, leading to unnecessary therapies with side effects as well as unclear prognosis in the affected children. The response of the idiopathic nephrotic syndrome to medications acting on the immune system explains its important role in the occurrence of the disease. With this study we aim to obtain predictors of the response to treatment right at the beginning of the disease, to adapt the therapy avoiding needless side effects. This will be done evaluating the blood and urine of affected children using state of the art molecular characterisation. We will evaluate the genetic predisposition, the cell trait changes and the presence of molecules in blood and urine that may affect the interaction between the immune system and the kidneys. We expect that the findings will improve treatment of children with idiopathic nephrotic syndrome and reduce the number of children suffering from unnecessary drugs related side effects.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy, safety, pharmacokinetics (PK), and pharmacodynamics (PD) of KP104 in participants with IgAN and C3G. The study will start with enrolling the IgAN cohort. Approximately 42 participants with IgAN will be enrolled in 2 stages: Stage 1 will be used to collect safety, immunogenicity, PK, and PD data to select the optimal biologic dose (OBD) of KP104 for IgAN, as well as to preliminarily explore the effect of KP104 on C3G. Stage 2 will be used to collect safety, immunogenicity, PK, PD, and efficacy data at the OBD dose of KP104 for IgAN and C3G. As soon as the OBD for IgAN is determined, eligible participants with C3G will be enrolled and dosed at the OBD for IgAN for a minimum of 48 weeks for weekly maintenance dosing and a minimum of 47 weeks for biweekly maintenance dosing. Approximately 10 participants with C3G will be enrolled.