Preventing Rejection of the Kidney Transplant.

With increasing knowledge of immunologic factors and with the advent of potent immunosuppressive agents, the last several decades have seen significantly improved kidney allograft survival. However, despite overall improved short to medium-term allograft survival, long-term allograft outcomes remain unsatisfactory. A large body of literature implicates acute and chronic rejection as independent risk factors for graft loss.

Overview of Renal Transplantation for Primary Care Physicians: Workup, Complications, and Management.

Kidney transplantation remains the treatment of choice for eligible patients with end-stage kidney disease. The last few decades have seen an expansion in the transplant recipient pool with over 250,000 patients living with a kidney transplant today. Because of limited bandwidth for ongoing follow-up and management of chronic medical conditions, transplant centers are directing more and more patients back to their general nephrologists and primary care doctors for longitudinal care.

Donor-Recipient Non-HLA Variants, Mismatches and Renal Allograft Outcomes: Evolving Paradigms.

Despite significant improvement in the rates of acute allograft rejection, proportionate improvements in kidney allograft longevity have not been realized, and are a source of intense research efforts. Emerging translational data and natural history studies suggest a role for anti-donor immune mechanisms in a majority of cases of allograft loss without patient death, even when overt evidence of acute rejection is not identified. At the level of the donor and recipient genome, differences in highly polymorphic HLA genes are routinely evaluated between donor and recipient pairs as part of organ allocation process, and utilized for patient-tailored induction and maintenance immunosuppression.

Congenital Factor VII Deficiency in Children at Tertiary Health Care Facility in Pakistan.

This study presents the demographics, clinical spectrum, and outcome of patients with congenital factor VII (FVII) deficiency at a tertiary care center over a period of 12 years. Of the 49 patients, 27 (55%) patients were males. Consanguinity was found in 92% of the patients.