Acute kidney injury can be caused by a number of factors, including transplants and

other surgeries. It affects 7–10 percent of all hospitalized patients, resulting in the
deaths of 35–40 percent of inpatients. 

Because stem cells have the unique ability to develop into any cell, stem cell therapy
is being considered for treatment of kidney damage.  What are your thoughts on
stem cell treatment?  Give at least three reasons for or against the treatment.

Be sure that your Learning Journal entry is a minimum of 500 words.

Acute renal failure (ARF), commonly referred to as acute kidney injury (AKI), is a brief period
of kidney damage or failure that lasts a few hours to a few days. AKI makes it difficult for
your kidneys to maintain the proper balance of fluid in your body and leads to a buildup of
waste products in your blood. Other organs like the brain, heart, and lungs may also be
impacted by AKI. As mentioned in the question, AKI is common in hospitalised patients.
These injuries can be caused by different factors, such as getting a direct hit in the kidneys,
decrease in blood flow because of diseases and illnesses, urinary tract getting blocked and
so on (Acute Kidney Injury (AKI), n.d.). I personally do not support the use of stem cell
therapy because many have not been FDA approved yet but studies are being done and
possibilities are being shown.

One of the reasons I would not opt for stem cell therapy is because only a few stem cell
therapies have been shown to be safe and effective. Due to the genetic modifications made
during programming, induced pluripotent stem cells are highly susceptible to cancerous
mutations. This makes stem cell therapy risky (OpenStax, 2013). Risk factors for stem cell
therapy include the difficulty of obtaining and keeping a patient's embryonic stem cells, as
well as the success rate. Adult stem cells may be difficult to manage in order to produce all
cell types, which limits their use in the therapy of disease. Chemicals in the environment or
replication errors can cause abnormalities in adult cells. Because embryonic stem cells
frequently reject recipients, finding the right stem cell can be difficult (Trounson &
McDonald, 2015).

Another reason is that there is a possibility of growth of a tumour. According to Rota,

Morigi, & Imberti (2019), The possibility of genetically modifying iPSCs obtained from
patients with hereditary disorders is what gives cell therapy using iPSCs its potential.
The extremely proliferative nature of iPSCs and the use of viral vectors for
reprogramming, however, limits that persist and consolidate the effectiveness of their
origin and the risk of tumour progression following transplantation. Additionally, the
quality of iPSCs is influenced by the adult somatic cells used for extraction, which
might change as they age, and by the occasionally poorly controlled epigenetic
alteration that occurs during reprogramming. It is crucial to distinguish between
iPSCs and iPSC-derived cells and better comprehend the mechanisms underlying
reprogramming before deploying them in a clinical context because the choice of the
somatic cell type and the reprogramming technique can drastically affect the final
result.

Another reason is that stem cell therapy can be very expensive and there is a
potential risk of cancer in some treatments. Because it is a specialised treatment,
and if after the procedure the body decides to reject the stem cell then not only did it
not help fix the issue it was meant to in the body, we can also end up losing out on a
lot of money, this can cause a financial burden for some people. Additionally in
people who have undergone kidney transplantation or have renal disorders. To rule
out the possibility of developing cancer and anti-HLA antibodies, long-term
surveillance is indicated. The challenge is to better understand the complicated
topography of various stem cell populations and their secretomes so that the
standards for formulating clinical research with substantial impressions may be
developed. Lack of understanding of the in vivo mechanisms of action of pluripotent
and adult stem cell-based therapies prevents the clinical application of these novel
techniques (Rota, Morigi, & Imberti 2019),

In conclusion, there are still many potential consequences involved with stem cell therapy,
and studies are yet to show results, until scientists can perform major operations with a high
success rate, I cannot recommend stem cell therapy to anyone.

References:

Acute Kidney Injury (AKI). (n.d.). National Kidney Foundation. Retrieved from:
https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/AcuteKidneyInjury

OpenStax. (2018) Anatomy & physiology. Houston, TX: Rice University.

https://cnx.org/contents/FPtK1zmh@12.6:fEI3C8Ot@16/Preface

Rota, C., Morigi, M., & Imberti, B. (2019, June 7). Stem cell therapies in kidney diseases:
Progress
and challenges. PubMed Central (PMC). Retrieved from:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600599/
Trouson, A. & McDonald, C. (2015). Stem Cell Therapies in Clinical Trials: Progress
and Challenges. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1934590915002672