Clinical Implementation and Initial Experience of Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin Testing for the Diagnostic and Prognostic Assessment of Acute Kidney Injury Events in Hospitalized Patients.

Introduction: The use of novel kidney injury biomarkers has been shown to improve diagnostic assessment and prognostic prediction in various populations with acute kidney injury (AKI), but their use in a standard clinical practice have been rarely reported.

Methods: We reported the clinical implementation of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) measurement for routine AKI diagnostic workup of patients receiving nephrology consultation in a tertiary academic centre. Specific focus was made on the diagnostic performance to discriminate functional ("pre-renal") from intra-renal AKI and to predict AKI progression.

Acute interstitial nephritis with podocyte foot-process effacement complicating Plasmodium falciparum infection.

Background: Malarial acute renal failure (MARF) is a component of the severe malaria syndrome, and complicates 1-5% of malaria infections. This form of renal failure has not been well characterized by histopathology.

Case Presentation: A 44 year-old male presented to the emergency department with a 5-day history of fever and malaise after returning from Nigeria.

Oxidation-Mediated Fingering in Liquid Metals.

We identify and characterize a new class of fingering instabilities in liquid metals; these instabilities are unexpected due to the large interfacial tension of metals. Electrochemical oxidation lowers the effective interfacial tension of a gallium-based liquid metal alloy to values approaching zero, thereby inducing drastic shape changes, including the formation of fractals. The measured fractal dimension (D=1.

The Irish living kidney donor program - why potential donors do not proceed to live kidney donation?

Background: Living donation is not only a method to increase access to kidney transplantation but can also offer superior outcomes. We report the experience of the living donor (LD) program in the Republic of Ireland and explore reasons why potential donors do not proceed to live donation.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study of all potential donors from January 2000 to March 2014 who presented wishing to undergo donor work-up and their subsequent outcomes.

Tacrolimus trough-level variability predicts long-term allograft survival following kidney transplantation.

Aims: The purpose of this study is to investigate tacrolimus trough-level variability from 3 to 12 months following transplantation and its association with allograft survival in renal transplant recipients.

Materials And Methods: In this observational cohort study, tacrolimus trough-level variability was used as the predictor of all-cause allograft failure (defined as return to dialysis) and patient survival (all-cause mortality).

Results: In total, 394 transplants were included in the analysis.

The Irish Kidney Gene Project--Prevalence of Family History in Patients with Kidney Disease in Ireland.

Background: The prevalence of kidney disease (KD) due to inherited genetic conditions in Ireland is unknown. The aim of this study was to characterise an adult kidney disease population in Ireland and to identify familial clusters of kidney disease within the population.

Methods: This was a multicenter cross-sectional study of patients with kidney disease in the Republic of Ireland, from January 2014 to September 2014, recruiting from dialysis units and out-patient renal departments.

Prevention of sudden cardiac death in hemodialysis patients.

One quarter of all hemodialysis patients will succumb to sudden cardiac death (SCD), a rate far exceeding that observed in the general population. A high prevalence of atherosclerotic coronary artery disease amongst patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) partly explains this exaggerated risk. However, uremia and dialysis related factors are also of critical importance.

C3 glomerulopathy: clinicopathologic features and predictors of outcome.

Background And Objectives: The term C3 glomerulopathy describes renal disorders characterized by the presence of glomerular deposits composed of C3 in the absence of significant amounts of Ig. On the basis of electron microscopy appearance, subsets of C3 glomerulopathy include dense deposit disease (DDD) and C3 glomerulonephritis (C3GN). The full spectrum of histologic change observed in C3 glomerulopathy has yet to be defined and pathologic predictors of renal outcome within this patient population remain largely unknown.

Re-infection following sustained virological response with a different hepatitis C virus genotype: implications for infection control policy.

We report the case of a 45-year-old haemodialysis patient who achieved a sustained virological response (SVR) following pegylated interferon therapy for hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 2 infection. He was subsequently cohorted with other HCV-infected dialysis patients and became re-infected with HCV genotype 3a. Epidemiological and molecular investigations identified a highly viraemic HCV genotype 3a-infected dialysis patient as the likely source of this infection.

Neuropathy in the hemodialysis population: a review of neurophysiology referrals in a tertiary center.

This was a retrospective observational study of neurophysiology referrals over 8 years from a tertiary referral center in Ireland. A total of 68 of the 73 referrals yielded one or more abnormalities. Thirty-nine (53%) patients had one or more mononeuropathies; iatrogenic mononeuropathies believed to be associated with arterio-venous fistula creation occurred in 15 patients.