Allopurinol for the treatment of chronic kidney disease: a systematic review.

Background: The term chronic kidney disease (CKD) is used to describe abnormal kidney function (or structure). People with CKD have an increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Evidence is emerging that allopurinol may have a role to play in slowing down the progression of CKD and reducing the risk of CVD.

Pneumoperitoneum in peritoneal dialysis patients; one centre's experience.

The pneumoperitoneum (PP) on upright chest X-ray (CXR) usually indicates a perforated viscus. As peritoneal dialysis (PD) catheter provides an additional port of air entry into the peritoneal cavity, the incidence and clinical significance of PP in PD patients has been debated in the literature (a variable incidence from 4 to 34% has been reported in previous studies). With improvement in patient training and connecting devices of PD catheters, technique-related PP is quite rare.

Abnormal mitochondrial function and muscle wasting, but normal contractile efficiency, in haemodialysed patients studied non-invasively in vivo.

Background: Muscle dysfunction, which contributes to morbidity in patients on haemodialysis, has several manifestations and a number of possible causes. We applied the non-invasive techniques of (31)P-magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((31)P-MRS), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to calf muscle of dialysed patients to define the abnormalities in muscle cross-sectional area (CSA), contractile efficiency, mitochondrial function and vascular O(2) supply.

Methods: We performed (31)P-MRS/NIRS/MRI studies on the lateral gastrocnemius during isometric plantarflexion and recovery in 23 male patients on haemodialysis (age 24-71 years; haemoglobin 9.