Prognostic Biomarkers in Kidney Transplantation: A Systematic Review and Critical Appraisal.

Significance Statement: Why are there so few biomarkers accepted by health authorities and implemented in clinical practice, despite the high and growing number of biomaker studies in medical research ? In this meta-epidemiological study, including 804 studies that were critically appraised by expert reviewers, the authors have identified all prognostic kidney transplant biomarkers and showed overall suboptimal study designs, methods, results, interpretation, reproducible research standards, and transparency. The authors also demonstrated for the first time that the limited number of studies challenged the added value of their candidate biomarkers against standard-of-care routine patient monitoring parameters. Most biomarker studies tended to be single-center, retrospective studies with a small number of patients and clinical events.

Clinical phenotype and outcome of hepatitis E virus-associated neuralgic amyotrophy.

Objective: To determine the clinical phenotype and outcome in hepatitis E virus-associated neuralgic amyotrophy (HEV-NA).

Methods: Cases of NA were identified in 11 centers from 7 European countries, with retrospective analysis of demographics, clinical/laboratory findings, and treatment and outcome. Cases of HEV-NA were compared with NA cases without evidence of HEV infection.