Awardees

Supervisors: Dr. Amit Garg and Dr. York Pei
Award: KRESCENT Allied Health Doctoral Scholarship
Institution: University of Western Ontario
Year: 2017-2018

Ms. Vinusha Kalatharan will complete her fellowship under the supervision of Dr. Amit Garg and Dr. York Pei at The University of Western Ontario, where she is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in epidemiology and biostatistics.

Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD) is a genetic disorder with no cure. Urinary tract stones are five to ten times more common in patients with ADPKD compared to the general population and increase morbidity by causing pain and accelerating disease progression. For these reasons, stones require effective management in patients with ADPKD. Recurrent pain, blood in urine, urinary tract obstruction, or infection caused by stones may demand an urgent intervention to remove the stone. However, reduced kidney function and distorted kidney anatomy in this population may make performing these interventions more challenging than the general population. Strong evidence on the safety and efficacy of urological interventions as well as the associated operative and post-operative healthcare costs for urinary tract stone removal in patients with ADPDK is lacking.

Ms. Kalatharan aims to: 1) describe and compare the incidence of urological interventions for urinary tract stone removal in patients with ADPKD to non-ADPKD counterparts; 2) describe and compare the 30-day incidence of complications following a urological intervention for stone removal in patients with ADPKD to non-ADPKD counterparts; and 3) describe and compare the operative and perioperative healthcare costs of urological intervention for stone removal in patients with ADPKD to their non-ADPKD counterparts. She will conduct several population-based studies using Ontario’s healthcare administrative databases held at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, applying statistical and health economics analyses to address these objectives. Research findings from these studies may help modify and inform future clinical practice guidelines on the management of urinary tract stones in ADPKD.