Contreras Laboratory

General information

Gabriel Contreras M.D. M.P.H.
Associate Professor, Medicine / Nephrology

Research Interests

• Lupus nephritis: epidemiology and new therapies
• The epidemiology of progressive kidney disease and cardiovascular disease in chronic kidney disease

Keywords and Phrases

• Lupus nephritis
• Cardiovascular disease
• Chronic kidney disease
• Epidemiology

Contact Information

Office location: Rosenstiel Medical Science Building
600 NW 10^th Avenue, Room 7146 (R126)
Miami, FL 33101
Phone: (305) 243-3583 and (305) 243-2110
E-mail: GContrer@med.miami.edu

Members

Research

Lupus nephritis
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the prototype of autoimmune diseases, commonly affects the kidney during its course. Up to 60% of adults and 80% of children in selected populations develop renal abnormalities during the disease. Renal involvement adds significantly to the mortality and morbidity of SLE patients. In the 60’s and early 70’s, renal death was the most common cause of organ-specific attributable mortality and five-year patient survival was approximately 55%. In the following decades, the availability of dialysis, transplantation, and the rational use of immunosuppressive therapy for patients with severe forms of lupus nephritis improved patient survival to 80% or more. In 1997, lupus nephritis was the primary diagnosis in 2% of Medicare patients with ESRD supported with dialysis and in 5% of patients who received kidney transplantation. Our group is dedicated to advancing clinical research of lupus nephritis focusing on the epidemiology of this disease in observational studies and assessing the efficacy and safety of new immunosuppressive regimens in clinical trials.

Chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease
Epidemiological studies have established that patients with CKD have an increased risk for cardiovascular events independently of traditional risk factors for CVD such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and tobacco use. In CKD patients, cardiovascular events are very common and remain the major cause of morbidity and mortality. In fact, most patients with CKD will die of CVD before reaching end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Traditional risk factors for CVD such as diabetes and hypertension account significantly to the increased risk for cardiovascular events. However, patients with CKD develop early CVD independently of older age and hypercholesterolemia. In addition, in some but not all clinical studies, additional nontraditional risk factors have been associated with increased risk for the development of cardiovascular events independently of traditional risk factors. Our group is dedicated to advancing clinical research of the relationship among CKD, CVD and outcomes in observational studies, particularly of vulnerable and minority populations.

Selected Publications

• Gerald B. Appel, Gabriel Contreras, Mary Anne Dooley, Ellen M. Ginzler, David Isenberg, David Jayne, Lei-Shi Li, Eduardo Mysler, Jorge Sánchez-Guerrero,Neil Solomons, David Wofsy, and the Aspreva Lupus Management Study (ALMS) Group. Mycophenolate Mofetil Versus Cyclophosphamide as Lupus Nephritis Induction Treatment. J Am Soc Nephrol 2009, in press.
• G Contreras, O Lenz, V Pardo, E Borja, C Cely, K Iqbal, N Nahar, C de La Cuesta, A Hurtado, A Fornoni, L Beltran-Garcia, A Asif, L Young, J Diego, M Zachariah, B Smith-Norwood. Outcomes in African-Americans and Hispanics with Lupus Nephritis. Kidney Int 2006, 69, 1846-1851.
• Gabriel Contreras, Victoriano Pardo, Cynthia Cely, Eduardo Borja, Carolina De La Cuesta, Khalid Iqbal, Oliver Lenz, Arif Asif, Nilay Nahar, Adriana Hurtado, B Leclerq, Carlos Leon, I Schulman, Felix Ramirez-Seijas, Anna Paredes, Anselmo Cepero, Tasnim Khan, Francisco Pachon, Elaine Tozman, Gaspar Barreto, David Hoffman, Mario Almeida Suarez, Jorge C. Busse, Marcos Esquenazi, Alberto Esquenazi , Luis Garcia Mayol, Herminio Garcia Estrada. Factors associated with poor outcomes in patients with lupus nephritis. Lupus 2005, 14(11): 890-895.
• Oliver Lenz, Alessia Fornoni, Gabriel Contreras. Defining the Role of Mycophenolate Mofetil in the Treatment of Proliferative Lupus Nephritis. Drugs 2005, 65(17): 2429-2436.
• Contreras G, Pardo V, Leclercq B, Lenz O, Tozman E, O'Nan P, Roth D: Sequential therapies for proliferative lupus nephritis. N Engl J Med 350:971-980, 2004
• Debasish Banerjee, Gabriel Contreras, Isabel Jaraba, Decio Carvalho, Luis Ortega, Cristiane Carvalho, Candido Pezon, Stephen P Rosenthal, Norman de la Rosa, Nuripama Vemuri, Gautam Cherla, Nilay Nahar. Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 3 to 5 and Cardiovascular Disease in the Veterans Affairs population. Int Urol Nephrol 2009.
• Gabriel Contreras, Tom Greene, Lawrence Y. Agodoa, DeAnna Cheek, George Junco, Donna Dowie, James Lash, Michael Lipkowitz, Edgar R. Miller III, Akinlou Ojo, Mohammed Sika, Beth Wilkening, Robert D. Toto, for the African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension. Blood Pressure Control, Drug Therapy and Kidney Disease. Hypertension 2005; 46: 44-50.
• S Yi S, G Contreras, ER Miller,LJ Appel,BC Astor. Correlates of N-Terminal Prohormone Brain Natriuretic Peptides (NT-proBNP) in African Americans with Hypertensie Chronic Kidney Disease: The African-American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension (AASK). Am J Nephrol 2009; 29:292-298.
• Peterson GE, de Baker T, Gabriel A, Ilic V, Vagaonescu T, Appel LJ, Contreras G, Kendrick C, Rostand S, Phillips RA for the African American study of kidney disease investigators. Prevalence and correlates of left ventricular hypertrophy in the African American study of kidney disease cohort study. Hypertension 2007; 50 (6): 1033-1039.