Kidney-resident macrophages—a role for healing during acute kidney injury?

During development in the womb, immune cells called macrophages go to the kidneys, and they remain there for life. Understanding the possible healing role for these macrophages after kidney damage may be crucial to helping treat patients who suffer acute kidney injury. Acute kidney injury, or AKI, is a devastating condition that develops in two-thirds of critically ill patients, and […]

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Mouse study links early metastasis to systemic inflammation caused by wound healing

According to new research conducted in mice by Whitehead Institute scientists, surgery in breast cancer patients, which while often curative, may trigger a systemic immunosuppressive response, allowing the outgrowth of dormant cancer cells at distant sites whose ability to generate tumors had previously been kept in check by the immune system. Taking a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) around the time […]

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