Newswise — Recent analyses of clinical renal trial results suggest that women are underrepresented in medical trials, according to findings being presented during the American Society of Nephrology's 38th Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These trial results may be a key factor in the Food and Drug Administration's decision to remove many of these drugs from the market.
Over the past decade, 8 out of 10 drugs taken out of use by the FDA have been withdrawn because of unexpected side effects in women. Yet, women are not sufficiently represented in clinical renal trials to determine drugs' effectiveness or safety. According to Dr. Julia Lewis of Vanderbilt University's Division of Nephrology, the analyses of recent renal clinical trial results indicate important gender effects and will serve as a basis for more careful analyses.
Determining the contribution of sex hormones and genetic makeup to the pathogenesis of progressive renal disease and hypertension is pivotal to our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie these processes, as well as for developing new therapeutic regimens for their prevention and treatment.
Dr. Lewis will present her lecture, "Gender Issues in Large Clinical Renal Trials," during a symposium entitled, The Pathophysiology of Progressive Renal Disease and Hypertension: Importance of Gender and Ethnicity, on Sunday, November 13 at 10:00 am in Room 107 of the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
The ASN is a not-for-profit organization of 9,000 physicians and scientists dedicated to the study of nephrology and committed to providing a forum for the promulgation of information regarding the latest research and clinical findings on kidney diseases. ASN's Renal Week 2005, the largest nephrology meeting of its kind, will provide a forum for more than 12,000 nephrologists to discuss the latest findings in renal research and engage in educational sessions relating advances in the care of patients with kidney and related disorders from November 8-13 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA.
RSS