Recipient body surface area as a predictor of posttransplant renal allograft evolution.

Background: The aim of the present study was to analyze whether minor differences in recipient body surface area have any predictive value on renal allograft evolution.

Methods: For this study, we considered 236 pairs of recipients who received a kidney from the same donor at our center between March 1985 and December 1995. Pairs in whom at least one patient presented any of the following events were excluded: graft loss during the first year of follow-up, diabetes mellitus, noncompliance with treatment, chronic pyelonephritis, and recurrent or de novo glomerulonephritis.

Risk factors for left ventricular hypertrophy: role of Na(+)-Li+ countertransport.

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is associated with an increase in cardiovascular death in essential hypertension (EH). The factors involved in LVH are multiple and complex. We looked for risk factors of LVH in a group of 28 nonobese patients with EH (mean age = 45.

Chronic haemodialysis for very old patients.

There is in the Western World a progressive ageing of the population, and consequently haemodialysis patients are also getting older. Some ethical questions have been raised as a consequence of the economic issues related to the scarcity of available resources. In this paper we review our experience in the treatment of very old chronic haemodialysis patients.