By JEREMY PEARCE
Published: September 15, 2007
From NY Times Obit
Dr. Joseph W. Eschbach, a leading kidney specialist whose studies in the 1960’s led to a dramatic improvement in the treatment of anemia in patients on dialysis, died on Sept. 7 at his home in Bellevue, Wash. He was 74. The cause was lung cancer, his family said.
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Dr. Eschbach began studying anemia as a young researcher in nephrology at the University of Washington. The disorder causes a decline in red blood cells and interrupts the delivery of oxygen to the body’s tissues. About 90 percent of patients undergoing dialysis for kidney failure become anemic, a condition once treated with blood transfusions that could expose them to hepatitis and other diseases.
Working with a hematologist, Dr. John W. Adamson, Dr. Eschbach looked at various forms of renal failure and the role of a natural hormone, erythropoietin, also known as EPO, in the formation of red blood cells. Studying sheep and other animals in the 1970s, the two scientists helped establish that EPO stimulates the production of red cells in bone marrow and could lead to a treatment for anemia in humans.
In the 1980s, Dr. Eschbach, who had a large private practice in Seattle, and others helped lead a clinical trial for a synthetic form of the hormone produced by Amgen, a California biotechnology company. The trial was successful, and its results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1987.
In 1989, the Food and Drug Administration approved the hormone, called Epogen, which remains in use.
Dr. Christopher R. Blagg, a nephrologist and emeritus professor of medicine at Washington, said the development of the drug led to “a difference in patients’ well-being that was as strong and as dramatic as what we saw with the advent of the kidney transplant.”
Throughout his career, Dr. Eschbach combined research with its clinical application. He was an early advocate of treating kidney patients at home, if possible, instead of in the hospital, and was director of home dialysis at Washington from 1965 to 1972.
Joseph Wetherill Eschbach was born in Detroit. He graduated from Otterbein College before earning a medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in 1959.
He became a clinical instructor at Washington in 1965, and was named a clinical professor of nephrology there in 1975. Dr. Eschbach was also a senior research associate at Northwest Kidney Centers in Seattle, where he was a former president of the board. He retired in 2003.
Dr. Eschbach is survived by his wife of 51 years, the former MaryAnn Charles. He is also survived by a son, Joseph, of Bellevue; two daughters, Annbeth of New York and Cheryl of Atlanta; a sister, Margabeth Cibulka, of East Lansing, Mich.; and five grandchildren.