Estimating serum-ionized magnesium concentration in hemodialysis patients.

Introduction: Cardiovascular mortality is significantly increased in kidney failure with replacement therapy (KFRT) patients, which is partly mediated by enhanced vascular calcification. Magnesium appears to have anticalcifying capabilities, and hypomagnesemia has been associated with increased mortality in KFRT patients. Ionized magnesium represents the biologically and physiologically active form.

Impaired Retinal Vessel Dilation Predicts Mortality in End-Stage Renal Disease.

Rationale: Patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are characterized by increased cardiovascular (CV) and all-cause mortality due to advanced remodeling of the macro- and microvascular beds.

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine whether retinal microvascular function can predict all-cause and CV mortality in patients with ESRD.

Methods And Results: In the multicenter prospective observational ISAR (Risk Stratification in End-Stage Renal Disease) study, data on dynamic retinal vessel analysis (DVA) was available in a sub-cohort of 214 dialysis patients (mean age 62.

Comparison of 24-hour and Office Pulse Wave Velocity for Prediction of Mortality in Hemodialysis Patients.

Background: Mortality in hemodialysis patients still remains unacceptably high. Enhanced arterial stiffness is a known cardiovascular risk factor, and pulse wave velocity (PWV) has proven to be a valid parameter to quantify risk. Recent studies showed controversial results regarding the prognostic significance of PWV for mortality in hemodialysis patients, which may be due to methodological issues, such as assessment of PWV in the office setting (Office-PWV).

Sonography of the renal allograft: Correlation between doppler sonographic resistance index (RI) and histopathology.

Introduction: Allograft rejection (AR), chronic allograft injury (CAI) and acute tubular necrosis (ATN) can lead to renal allograft dysfunction after kidney transplantation. Interstitial fibrosis/tubular atrophy (Banff classification 2005) describes chronic allograft injury with no specific etiology, thus explaining the common final endpoint of various (immunologic and non immunologic) etiologies. The aim of this study was to evaluate correlations between the Doppler sonographic RI-values and histopathological changes of renal allografts biopsies during rejection, acute tubular necrosis and chronic allograft injury as well as the influence of donor and recipient features on the intrarenal RI-values.