HLA Antibody Incompatible Renal Transplantation: Long-term Outcomes Similar to Deceased Donor Transplantation.

Background: HLA incompatible renal transplantation still remains one of best therapeutic options for a subgroup of patients who are highly sensitized and difficult to match but not much is known about its long-term graft and patient survival.

Methods: One hundred thirty-four HLA incompatible renal transplantation patients from 2003 to 2018 with a median follow of 6.93 y were analyzed retrospectively to estimate patient and graft survivals.

A Glucose-Only Model to Extract Physiological Information from Postprandial Glucose Profiles in Subjects with Normal Glucose Tolerance.

Background: Current mathematical models of postprandial glucose metabolism in people with normal and impaired glucose tolerance rely on insulin measurements and are therefore not applicable in clinical practice. This research aims to develop a model that only requires glucose data for parameter estimation while also providing useful information on insulin sensitivity, insulin dynamics and the meal-related glucose appearance (GA).

Methods: The proposed glucose-only model (GOM) is based on the oral minimal model (OMM) of glucose dynamics and substitutes the insulin dynamics with a novel function dependant on glucose levels and GA.

Bayesian parameter estimation in the oral minimal model of glucose dynamics from non-fasting conditions using a new function of glucose appearance.

Background And Objective: The oral minimal model (OMM) of glucose dynamics is a prominent method for assessing postprandial glucose metabolism. The model yields estimates of insulin sensitivity and the meal-related appearance of glucose from insulin and glucose data after an oral glucose challenge. Despite its success, the OMM approach has several weaknesses that this paper addresses.

Enhancement of Synchronization between Physiological Signals during Exercise: A Preliminary Investigation.

During running, interactions were considered between three physiological oscillators - the heart, breaths, and steps. During intense exercise, the oscillations of all three systems are close to regular, producing good conditions to observe and characterise synchronization. The origin, as well as any physiological significance, of synchronization between these systems during running is not fully accepted or understood.

C3d-positive donor-specific antibodies have a role in pretransplant risk stratification of cross-match-positive HLA-incompatible renal transplantation: United Kingdom multicentre study.

Anti-HLA-antibody characteristics aid to risk-stratify patients and improve long-term renal graft outcomes. Complement activation by donor-specific antibody (DSA) is an important characteristic that may determine renal allograft outcome. There is heterogeneity in graft outcomes within the moderate to high immunological risk cases (cross-match-positive).

Physical fitness contributes to cardio-respiratory synchronization.

Cardio-respiratory synchronization is a phenomenon of particular interest- especially at a 1:1 ratio- and may give greater insight into the underlying mechanisms of cardio-respiratory communication. Synchronization of this ratio is hypothesised to occur when breathing rate exceeds heart rate, which is the premise of this research. A novel experimental design focused on guiding elevated respiration to induce the entrainment of heart rate, and produce an equivalent rise in value.

A Minimal Model Approach for the Description of Postprandial Glucose Responses from Glucose Sensor Data in Diabetes Mellitus.

Modelling of the gluco-regulatory system in response to an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) has been the subject of research for decades. This paper presents an adaptation to the well-established oral minimal model that is identifiable from glucose data only and is able to capture the dynamics of glucose following both OGTT and mixed meal consumption. The model is in the form of low-dimensional differential equations with a recently introduced input function consisting of Gaussian shaped components.

Control of heart rate through guided high-rate breathing.

Understanding the complex dynamics of cardio-respiratory coupling sheds light on the underlying mechanisms governing the communication between these two physiological systems. Previous research has predominantly considered the coupling at respiratory rates slower than the heart rate and shown that respiratory oscillations lead to modulation and/or synchronization of the heart rate. Whereas the mechanisms of cardio-respiratory communication are still under discussion, peripheral nervous regulation is considered to be the predominant factor.

A new data-driven model for post-transplant antibody dynamics in high risk kidney transplantation.

The dynamics of donor specific human leukocyte antigen antibodies during early stage after kidney transplantation are of great clinical interest as these antibodies are considered to be associated with short and long term clinical outcomes. The limited number of antibody time series and their diverse patterns have made the task of modelling difficult. Focusing on one typical post-transplant dynamic pattern with rapid falls and stable settling levels, a novel data-driven model has been developed for the first time.

Subclass analysis of donor HLA-specific IgG in antibody-incompatible renal transplantation reveals a significant association of IgG4 with rejection and graft failure.

Donor HLA-specific antibodies (DSAs) can cause rejection and graft loss after renal transplantation, but their levels measured by the current assays are not fully predictive of outcomes. We investigated whether IgG subclasses of DSA were associated with early rejection and graft failure. DSA levels were determined pretreatment, at the day of peak pan-IgG level and at 30 days post-transplantation in eighty HLA antibody-incompatible kidney transplant recipients using a modified microbead assay.