Dr Johannes Stegbauer

Hi, my name is Johannes Stegbauer. I'm a professor of nephrology located at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany. I'm a member of the working group EURECA-m, European Renal Cardiovascular Medicine, and I joined this ERA EDTR meeting since yesterday and I want to talk about three topics. I think it's quite relevant.

Cardio-Kidney Metabolic Disease:

So first I want to talk about the cardiorenal metabolic disease session. I think this is one of the most important syndromes and diseases we have to deal with because it has such a huge impact on general health. And now we are, as we know, name this CKM syndrome, we can easily understand the inter-organ communication between the heart, the kidney and the metabolism.

So we are not only focusing on one organ which we want to treat but we also want to treat the comorbidities, and especially in nephrology, the comorbidities of patients with CKD is so high. And one of the most fascinating things in this session was that we realized that treating CKD patients is almost similar to treating patients for example with HFpEF.

We have these fantastic force: the RAAs, the blockers, the SGLT2, the non sterile mineral corticoid receptor antagonists and also the GLP-1 agonists. And now it's up to us to treat them and to do more prevention that we don't see so many end-stage renal failure patients anymore.

Artificial Intelligence for Nephrologists:

The second session I was visiting was the artificial intelligence session and I'm, honestly, I'm a beginner in this field. And I was first very surprised how huge this field is already in nephrology, what kind of applications we have and also the importance to have not only an artificial intelligence or machine learning tool, we have to have tools where we can intervent and try to make it easier for the physicians and also easier for the patients.

And that was one highlight that there are already tools out. They have to be proven and also bring more into public health and into the nephrology area.

And the second one was the ethical concerns about machine learning and IR. There are still so many black boxes we have to overcome and make it as a safe and very successful tool.

Game Changers in Organ Shortage: Xenotransplantation?

The third session was today. I participated in the xenotransplantation session, also something very new, very fascinating. The first talk was about interviews, how the general public sees xenotransplantation, what uncertainty is in the general public, and how education, underrepresentivity and social status influences the way you see xenotransplantation. So the more educational status, you are more into xenotransplantation, and also if you trust science, then you are more pro xenotransplantation.

But there's still a long way to go to bring xenotransplantation into a general public understanding. That was one point and the other point was how fast xenotransplantation is developing. A year ago we were happy to see how it works in brain dead people and now we already treat patients with kidney failure successfully.

And so this is a rapid moving forward topic, and we also need these ethical things that we can understand and can explain the public how xenotransplantation is working and to take away the fears.