5220.0: Wednesday, October 24, 2001: 4:30 PM-6:00 PM

Oral Session

Kidney Biomarkers in Environmental Studies: Past and Future Directions

Nephrotoxic substances are common contaminants of concern at hazardous waste sites. Biomarkers of early renal effect are recognized as important tools in studies of populations environmentally exposed to nephrotoxic substances. Changes in renal function or structure can be detected by such sensitive biomarkers well before the appearance of clinically recognized conditions of renal insufficiency. Over the past 10 years, kidney biomarkers have been studied in several communities exposed to environmental contaminants. This session provides an overview of recent analytical work that has been performed on the data collected at these study sites and a discussion of the role of kidney biomarkers in future epidemiological research. The presentation by Noonan et al. will describe sensitive biomarkers of renal effect that were evaluated in a population with relatively low urinary cadmium levels. Sarasua et al. will present the results of a 10-year follow-up study conducted among three communities, evaluating the reliability of selected kidney biomarkers in predicting future renal disease or progression to higher levels of these subclinical markers. Kathman will describe a principal components analysis of kidney biomarkers as a new approach to summarizing the data, including graphical methods for identifying clusters of individuals and outliers. Finally, the analysis by Lewin and Campagna challenges conventional approaches of using creatinine ratios to adjust urinary biomarkers for urine dilution. This session will be beneficial for health officials and public health researchers communicating with, or planning studies in, communities exposed to nephrotoxic substances.
See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement.
Learning Objectives: Refer to the individual abstracts for learning objectives
Organizer(s):Curtis Noonan
4:30 PMAn exploratory analysis of kidney biomarker data using principal components
Steven Jay Kathman, PhD, Dave Campagna, PhD
4:45 PMBiomarkers of renal tubule damage associated with low level cadmium exposure
Curtis W Noonan, PhD, Sara M Sarasua, MSPH, Dave Campagna, PhD, Jeffery A Lybarger, MD
5:00 PMConfirming the utility of four kidney biomarker tests in a longitudinal follow-up study
Sara M. Sarasua, MSPH, Dave Campagna, PhD, Patricia C. Mueller, PhD, Steven Kathman, PhD, Barbara A. Slade, MD, Mary C. White, ScD
5:15 PMMethodological Considerations when Adjusting Kidney Biomarkers for Urine Dilutions
Michael Lewin, Dave Campagna, PhD
Sponsor:Environment
CE Credits:CME, Environmental Health, Health Education (CHES), Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work

The 129th Annual Meeting of APHA