 |
| Professor Kevan Polkinghorne |
Nephrologist
Kevan Polkinghorne was recently recognised for his clinical and research
achievements, receiving an academic promotion at Monash University.
Head
of Haemodialysis Programme at Monash Health, Professor Polkinghorne’s research
interests are in haemodialysis and chronic kidney disease. Internationally
regarded as haemodialysis vascular access expert,
Professor Polkinghorne’s early research led to the recognition of the important
link between haemodialysis vascular access type and mortality in Australia and
New Zealand.
“My
PhD research led to reporting and practice changes with ANZDATA registry and
nephrology unit across Australia and New Zealand, and I led the first CARI guidelines
(the Australian and New Zealand kidney guidelines group) evidence
implementation project to change clinical practice,” Professor Polkinghorne
said.
Professor
Polkinghorne’s current major projects include two multicentre randomised controlled
trials, investigating ways of improving outcomes for haemodialysis patients.
“I’m
leading an NHMRC-funded joint Canadian/Australian randomised trial to determine
if high dose fish oil in haemodialysis patients affects cardiovascular
outcomes,” Professor Polkinghorne said.
“This
study aims to recruit 1200 haemodialysis patients across Canada and Australia and
builds upon a previous small randomised trial performed in Canada that
suggested a benefit of fish oil on cardiac haemodialysis patients.”
Cardiovascular
events are a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in dialysis patients and traditional therapies which are effective in
the general population, such as the statins to lower cholesterol, are not
effective in this patient population.
Professor
Polkinghorne said there is a real need to test more novel therapies in this
population. The trial has commenced in Canada with recruitment in Australia to
begin next month.
This
trial continues Professor Polkinghorne’s interest in fish as an agent in haemodialysis
following completion of another randomised trial of its use in early arteriovenous
fistula failure, published in JAMA Int
Med earlier this year where he was the senior author.
In
another NHMRC-funded study, Professor Polkinghorne is a chief investigator on a
project implementing a structured intervention aimed at bacteraemia related to central
venous catheter use in haemodialysis patients.
Bacteraemia
related from dialysis catheters is a major source of patient morbidity and mortality
in dialysis patients and costs the healthcare system substantial amounts of
money each year.
“This
project is a multi-million dollar partnership between the NHMRC, Kidney Health
Australia, the CARI guideline group, the Victorian and Queensland health departments
and more than 30 hospitals throughout Australia,” Professor Polkinghorne said.
“Using
a stepped-wedge, cluster trial design we will implement a treatment bundle
where all aspects of catheter management from insertion to removal is standardised
with the hope of reducing catheter sepsis and complications.”
“Previous
work in the ICU settling has shown this approach to be effective so we hope to replicate
these results to the dialysis settling.”
Professor
Polkinghorne’s other research interests include the epidemiology of chronic
kidney disease with his work on the kidney aspects of the AusDiab chort study. Professor Polkinghorne has published more than
144 peer-reviewed papers, including in the JAMA and the
NEJM.
He
has co-supervised two PhD students to completion and is currently supervising three
PhD candidates.
Professor
Polkinghorne said his academic promotion is nice recognition—both personally
and professionally—for all the work he has done.
“I
especially acknowledge Professor Peter Kerr for encouraging me to do my PhD in
clinical research, which back when I did it, was almost unheard of in
nephrology,” Professor Polkinghorne said.
