Researcher Profile: Dr. Karthik Tennankore

Dr. Karthik Tennankore

Dr. Tennankore is a nephrologist and assistant professor of medicine. His clinical expertise includes chronic kidney disease and home dialysis modalities (home hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis). In addition to resident clinical education, he has an interest in research methodology and runs the research rotation for nephrology trainees.

What is your current research project? 
Currently, I am working with my coordinators (Laura Sills and Elizabeth Larsen) to recruit patients for a multi-center National study evaluating the impact of frailty on outcomes of patients who are waiting for a kidney transplantation. I am also involved in a number of research studies across the spectrum of kidney disease including dialysis and transplant.

How did you become interested in your research topic?
Frailty is common in patients with kidney disease, and I am interested in the health outcomes of frail patients. As a physician who participates in our kidney transplant wait list meeting, I have come to recognize that many who are considered for transplantation are frail, (that is, at a higher risk of future health events relative to others). However, frailty is not a standard part of the wait list eligibility assessment.

What has been unexpected about your findings so far?
Some of our preliminary research in this area has shown that the prevalence of frailty varies widely depending on which tools you use to assess it. That being said, frailty is common in patients on dialysis irrespective of age and associated with a higher risk of poor health outcomes. How that will translate to the current study remains to be seen.

What’s innovative about your research? 
To our knowledge, this is the first study to specifically try to assess the impact of frailty for the group of patients who are activated on the kidney transplant wait list. We hope to use this information to develop a risk prediction tool that can be used for the wait list eligibility assessment.

What unique tools/methods do you use to do your research?
Our study will assess frailty using a variety of different measures. Some of these require unique equipment (including a dynamometer to measure grip strength) or questionnaires to evaluate cognition and function.

One word that best describes how you work: Committed! 

What technology can’t you live without? 
My Mac, my phone and STATA (a program I can use to do my own analyses and statistics).

How do you envision your research benefiting the “public at large”?
We do not know if frail patients are at a higher risk of adverse health events while waiting for a transplant or shortly after transplant relative to those who are not frail. This information would be very valuable to physicians and patients, and may guide how we evaluate kidney transplant candidates at the local and national level.