Cancer patients receiving systemic therapy face a high risk for acute kidney injury (AKI), including dialysis-requiring acute kidney injury dialysis, according to new study findings presented during the International Cancer Conference held in Nairobi last week.
Systemic therapy involves drugs that are administered through out the body system to fight cancer cells.
Of the 771 patients who died of cervical cancer at the Texas Cancer Centre between January 2014 and December 2017, about 755 of them succumbed to renal failure complications representing 98 percent of the sampled cases.
Dr Catherine Nyongesa-Watta, a consultant oncologist said that the deaths occurred despite dialysis, nephrotomy tube insertion and radiotherapy.
“Women with cervical cancer often develop this complication as a result of tumour or lymph node encroachment, inflammation, or scarring at the pelvic rim,” she said.
She further explained that Kidney failure is an incurable and fatal disease and in reality, it may involve all the systems or organs.
“The kidney has multiple functions like adjusting blood pressure, keeping balance of electrolyte and acid-base, secreting necessary hormone and discharging wastes in blood,” she said.
The leading cause of death for kidney failure patients is cardiovascular disease (heart failure, stroke and coronary heart disease), which is the most life-threatening complication.
Kidney failure patients complain of nausea, vomiting, poor appetite and bad taste in mouth. All these symptoms are associated with digestive problems, which occur when toxins in blood affect the digestive tract.
The cases could escalate further. Dr Watta explained that some of the artificial tubes to drain fluids can dislodge, introduce infections or never drain at all, compromising quality of life and increasing cost of treatment.
According to study findings published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, certain prescription drugs also heightened risk, especially after systemic treatment. Use of a diuretic or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker was associated with 1.2 times greater acute renal injury risk in patients older than 66 years with universal drug coverage. AKI risk more than doubled during the first 90 days following systemic therapy compared with periods after 90 days.
From the Texas Cancer Center data, the cases of cervical cancer have increasingly gone up. The medical records of 1,453 total cases cervical cancers were reviewed out of whom 1,098 were admitted.
Cancer of the cervix (cervix uteri) is the leading killer of all cancers in East Africa accounting for 14,282 deaths, nearly double the number of people who died from the second-highest killer, oesophagus cancer.
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