Can Kidney Cells Be Used to Support Kidney Health?
Diabetic kidney disease is a serious complication of diabetes that can gradually reduce how well the kidneys filter the blood. Even with today’s medications, some patients continue to lose kidney function over time.
A recent Phase II clinical trial explored a regenerative approach called rilparencel, a therapy made from a patient’s own kidney cells. Researchers wanted to see whether returning these cells to the kidneys could help slow the decline in kidney function.
How Does the Treatment Work?
The process begins with a small kidney biopsy. Cells from that tissue are then isolated, expanded in the laboratory, and prepared into a personalized cell therapy.
The finished product is injected directly into the kidney. Because the cells come from the same patient, the treatment is considered autologous, meaning it uses the body’s own cells rather than donor cells.
Putting the Therapy to the Test
The multicenter trial randomized 53 adults with diabetes and chronic kidney disease, and 49 ultimately received at least one treatment.
Researchers tested two dosing approaches:
- One group received two scheduled injections, one into each kidney
- The second group received one injection, with a second dose only if kidney function worsened
Participants were followed for as long as 18 months after their final treatment.
Kidney Function Declined More Slowly
Researchers measured kidney function using eGFR, a common test that estimates how well the kidneys are filtering blood.
In the group receiving two scheduled treatments, kidney function had been declining by about 5.84 eGFR units per year before treatment. After the final injection, the decline slowed to about 1.27 units per year. That represented an approximately 78% improvement in the annual rate of kidney function decline.
The second group also showed a slower decline after treatment, although the improvement was smaller.
Importantly, the goal was not to show that damaged kidneys had completely regenerated. Instead, the results suggest the cell therapy may have helped preserve kidney function and slow disease progression.
What Did the Study Find About Safety?
The cell product itself had an encouraging safety profile.
Researchers reported:
- No serious adverse events related to rilparencel
- No deaths related to the cell therapy
- No deaths related to the injection procedure
Some participants did experience complications related to the kidney biopsy or injection procedure, including bleeding, acute kidney injury, and kidney hematomas.
That distinction is important: while the cell therapy itself was not linked to serious adverse events, the procedures needed to collect and deliver the cells still carry risks.
Why This Approach Is Interesting
Most treatments for diabetic kidney disease focus on controlling blood pressure, blood sugar, or other factors that contribute to kidney damage.
Rilparencel takes a different approach by using living kidney cells from the patient’s own tissue. Researchers believe these cells may help support the kidney environment and address several damaging processes at the same time.
That makes this study an interesting example of personalized regenerative medicine, where a treatment is created from a patient’s own organ cells and returned to that same organ.
An Encouraging Step Forward
The findings are promising, but the study had important limitations. It was relatively small and did not include a traditional placebo group. Instead, researchers compared kidney function after treatment with each participant’s kidney function before treatment.
The study population was also mostly White and male, so larger and more diverse studies will be important.
Still, the significant slowing of kidney function decline in the scheduled-treatment group makes this research worth watching. A larger Phase III, randomized, sham-controlled trial is already underway to determine whether these results can be confirmed.
For now, this study provides an encouraging look at how a patient’s own kidney cells may one day be used to help preserve kidney function and slow the progression of diabetic kidney disease.
Source
Čižman B, Butler EL, Stavas J, et al. A Randomized Clinical Trial of Kidney Autologous Cell Therapy in Diabetic Kidney Disease. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 2026;21(5):744–753. doi: 10.2215/CJN.0000000969. Available from: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13143438/
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