Pruritus and quality of life in renal transplant patients.

Background: Pruritus has a negative impact on quality of life (QoL) in dialysis patients. The reversibility of this symptom after renal transplantation and its impact upon QoL has scarcely been studied in these patients.

Methods: Pruritus was evaluated by the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), the Visual Rating Scale (VRS), and the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) in 133 unselected renal transplant patients, 62 healthy subjects, and 29 hemodialysis patients.

Subclinical pulmonary congestion is prevalent in nephrotic syndrome.

In patients with nephrotic syndrome (NS), the lung is considered an organ protected from the risk of edema. However, data on objectively measured lung water in NS patients is lacking. Here we measured lung water by an ultrasound (US) technique as well as by transthoracic impedance in 42 asymptomatic patients with active NS, in 14 stage G5D CKD patients on chronic hemodialysis, and in 21 healthy individuals.

Lung congestion as a risk factor in end-stage renal disease.

Background: Lung congestion is emerging as a pervasive, insidious problem in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients on dialysis.

Summary: Chest ultrasound (US), a novel, easy-to-perform, cheap technique, which is currently applied for objective monitoring of pulmonary congestion in patients with heart failure in Europe, allows reliable quantification of lung water in clinical practice. Before hemodialysis (HD), about 60% of ESRD patients displayed moderate-severe lung congestion and this alteration is frequently asymptomatic.

Asymptomatic pulmonary congestion and physical functioning in hemodialysis patients.

Background And Objectives: Poor physical performance is common in patients with kidney failure on dialysis (CKD-5D). Whether lung congestion, a predictable consequence of cardiomyopathy and fluid overload, may contribute to the low physical performance of CKD-5D patients has not been investigated in hemodialysis patients.

Design, Setting, Participants, & Measurements: This study investigated the relationship between the physical functioning scale of the Kidney Disease Quality of Life Short Form and a validated ultrasonographic measure of lung water in a multicenter survey of 270 hemodialysis patients studied between 2009 and 2010.

Visceral leishmaniasis reactivation in transplant patients: a minireview with report of a new case.

An updated review of cases of reactivated visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in transplant patients is presented, with a new report of a kidney transplant patient who had VL caused by reactivation of a dormant infection contracted 21 years previously. Close to the time of disease reactivation, the patient had a primary varicella-zoster infection.

Ranolazine can markedly increase tacrolimus blood levels.

We report the case of a renal transplant patient on tacrolimus who developed a fully reversible renal failure and a doubling in serum tacrolimus closely associated with initiation of ranolazine (Ranexa) treatment, a new anti-angina drug recently introduced in Europe.