Plasma pseudouridine levels reflect body size in children on hemodialysis.

Background: Dialysis in children as well as adults is prescribed to achieve a target spKt/V, where V is the volume of distribution of urea. Waste solute production may however be more closely correlated with body surface area (BSA) than V which rises in proportion with body weight. Plasma levels of waste solutes may thus be higher in smaller patients when targeting spKt/V since they have higher BSA relative to body weight.

Residual Function Effectively Controls Plasma Concentrations of Secreted Solutes in Patients on Twice Weekly Hemodialysis.

Most patients on hemodialysis are treated thrice weekly even if they have residual kidney function, in part because uncertainty remains as to how residual function should be valued and incorporated into the dialysis prescription. Recent guidelines, however, have increased the weight assigned to residual function and thus reduced the treatment time required when it is present. Increasing the weight assigned to residual function may be justified by knowledge that the native kidney performs functions not replicated by dialysis, including solute removal by secretion.

A double-blind, randomized, controlled, multicenter study to assess the safety and cardiovascular effects of skeletal myoblast implantation by catheter delivery in patients with chronic heart failure after myocardial infarction.

Background: We sought to determine the safety and preliminary efficacy of transcatheter intramyocardial administration of myoblasts in patients with heart failure (HF).

Methods: MARVEL is a randomized placebo-controlled trial of image-guided, catheter-based intramyocardial injection of placebo or myoblasts (400 or 800 million) in patients with class II to IV HF and ejection fraction <35%. Primary end points were frequency of serious adverse events (safety) and changes in 6-minute walk test and Minnesota Living With HF score (efficacy).

Absolute mRNA concentrations from sequence-specific calibration of oligonucleotide arrays.

Oligonucleotide microarrays are based on the hybridization of labeled mRNA molecules to short length oligonucleotide probes on a glass surface. Two effects have been shown to affect the raw data: the sequence dependence of the probe hybridization properties and the chemical saturation resulting from surface adsorption processes. We address both issues simultaneously using a physically motivated hybridization model.