Mondo has several different definitions, such as "very", or "big".
Lets keep this definition in mind as we examine the MONDO initiative launched by
Fresenius’s Renal Research Initiative. More details are available here.
RRI describes the MONDO initiative as follows: “the MONDO
(MONitoring Dialysis
Outcomes) initiative …encompasses multiple data bases from
around the world. MONDO’s goal is to gain a better understanding of the natural
history of chronic dialysis patients on a global scale.
So far, it seems that “RRI and its partners have collected
longitudinal per-patient data in 155,000 patients from 27 countries on five
continents (Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Australia). In the
MONDO initiative, RRI collaborates with the following partners: Fresenius
Medical Care (FMC) Europe, FMC Asia Pacific, FMC Latin America, FMC Canada,
University of Maastricht (The Netherlands), University of California at Santa
Barbara, and the Kuratorium für Heimdialyse und Nierentransplantation (Germany).”
The goal is to study “temporal trends of surrogate outcome
indicators”; as well as “for the future development of predictive models, which
might aid the clinician in identifying patients at risk for adverse outcomes”.
MONDO also asks the question: “are US clinical practices or US dialysis
population characteristics different from those of the rest of the world?”
I am pretty certain that this initiative must be costing
several hundred thousand dollars each year. The question I would ask is this:
what is the most important question we need to answer in managing dialysis
patients?
Surely, the question should be "Is more dialysis better?" Shouldn’t a dialysis company of the global scale and deep pockets of Fresenius want to know the
answer to this question? Instead, it is spending money and resources on research that is unlikely to change clinical practice.
Mondo!
