Dr. Ziv Haskal

Kidney Disease

In the United States, 500,000 people are on dialysis or living with a transplanted kidney, according to the National Kidney Foundation. For many of these people, the prognosis is bleak: time-consuming, energy-draining dialysis to clean their blood of the toxins that build up due to their failing kidney. Some patients are able to secure a kidney donation and subsequent transplant, but for others, dialysis may stop working as their veins are no longer able to support the procedure and their kidneys will fail.

March is National Kidney Month, and there will be a free screenings going on around the country sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation. Dr. Ziv Haskal joins the show. Dr. Haskal was the principal investigator on a recent study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine which showed a new stent, proven to be more effective than balloon angioplasty at keeping blood vessels open for dialysis, could be the preferred treatment option for patients and physicians.

Ziv J. Haskal, MD FSIR FAHA FACR FCIRSE is tenured professor of radiology and surgery, vice chair of radiology, director of image guided therapy and interventional oncology, and chief of the vascular and interventional radiology division at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, Md. Dr. Haskal serves on the editorial boards of multiple peer-reviewed journals, and has chaired numerous national committees for the American College of Radiology, the Radiological Society of North America, the Society of Interventional Radiology, the American College of Cardiology, and the American Heart Association.

Dr. Derrick DeSilva

3 / 9 / 2010