Patients with chronic kidney disease may be treated with a class of medications called Renin Angiotensin Aldosterone System inhibitors (RAASI's). Although these drugs protect the heart and kidney, a significant percentage of patients develop a dangerous side effect - high potassium levels in the blood (hyperkalemia).
Elevated potassium puts patients at risk of death from cardiac arrhythmias. Which usually results in doctors taking patients off these drugs to avoid the problem. Or giving them dialysis just to reduce the potassium levels. But some recent research results from two national studies of ZS-9, a new oral drug that has been tested in more than 1,000 patients with high blood potassium, shows hope of solving the potassium problem. It reduced the problem in 98% of patients!
You can read the researcher's news release here. The work was carried out at the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
