Hepatitis C and kidney disease: A narrative review.

Hepatitis-C (HCV) infection can induce kidney injury, mostly due to formation of immune-complexes and cryoglobulins, and possibly to a direct cytopathic effect. It may cause acute kidney injury (AKI) as a part of systemic vasculitis, and augments the risk of AKI due to other etiologies. It is responsible for mesangiocapillary or membranous glomerulonephritis, and accelerates the progression of chronic kidney disease due to other causes.

Burden of end-stage kidney disease: North Africa.

Geographical, ecological, and genetic factors result in many similarities among the six main countries of the African Sahara, including the epidemiology of kidney disease. With an average incidence of 182 and prevalence of 522 patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) per million population, North Africa (NA) spends $650 million on dialysis and transplantation despite an estimated annual loss of 600,000 life years. The health burden of ESKD is not limited to its directly-related morbidity and mortality but affects even more significantly other body systems, particularly the cardiovascular system.

Fifty years of dialysis in Africa: challenges and progress.

This review addresses the development of dialysis services in Africa in the face of past and contemporary challenges. Maintenance dialysis treatment programs developed in 29 countries over the past 50 years, usually many years after their independence and the end of subsequent territorial and civil wars. Eight countries had the resources to launch national dialysis programs, conventionally defined as those accommodating at least 100 patients per million population.

Urinary schistosomiasis: review.

Unlabelled: In this review, the clinical manifestations of urinary schistosomiasis are displayed from a pathogenetic perspective. According to the prevailing host's immune response profile, urinary schistosomiasis may be broadly categorized into cell-mediated and immune-complex-mediated disorders. The former, usually due to Schistosoma haematobium infection, are attributed to the formation of granulomata along the entire urinary tract.

Human schistosomiasis: clinical perspective: review.

The clinical manifestations of schistosomiasis pass by acute, sub acute and chronic stages that mirror the immune response to infection. The later includes in succession innate, TH1 and TH2 adaptive stages, with an ultimate establishment of concomitant immunity. Some patients may also develop late complications, or suffer the sequelae of co-infection with other parasites, bacteria or viruses.

Burden of chronic kidney disease: North Africa.

North Africa (NAF) is composed of six countries located in the African Sahara, namely the Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. Common features between these countries include similar climate, ecology, population genetics, and the socioeconomic environment. This commonality reflects on the chronic kidney disease (CKD) profile in these countries.

Parasitic kidney disease: milestones in the evolution of our knowledge.

Of the 342 parasites that infect humans, 20 are associated with kidney disease, yet of these, only schistosomes, plasmodia, filariae, and leishmanias are held responsible for significant clinical or epidemiologic impact. Reviewing the evolution of human knowledge for these parasites discloses a lot of similarities regarding their discovery, patterns of kidney injury, and pathogenic mechanisms. From a historical perspective, our relevant information may be classified into 4 phases: (1) disease documentation in ancient and medieval scripts as far back as 2000-3000 bce; (2) discovery of the parasites, their life cycles, and clinical correlates by European clinicians working in African and Asian colonies during the second half of the 19th century; (3) discovery and characterization of the renal manifestations of monoparasitic infections during the second half of the 20th century; and (4) recognition of the confounding effects of coinfection with bacteria, viruses, or other parasites.

A mission in evolution: the International Society of Nephrology in the past 10 years--2001-2010.

The International Society of Nephrology is now 50 years old! It has dedicated the year 2010 to celebrate its Gold Anniversary in many ways, including documentation of its progress during the past decade, following an earlier article addressing the period 1960-2000. The present article describes the changing mission of the Society in the direction of achieving its ultimate vision of "global elimination of kidney disease." While maintaining its leadership in the promotion of science, it became the prime driving force in capacity building for the diagnosis, prevention and management of kidney disease in the developing world.

Trends in unrelated-donor kidney transplantation in the developing world.

Living unrelated donors (LUDs) constitute an incremental source of kidneys for transplantation at a global level. Excellent outcomes are reported, superior to those of deceased-donor transplantation and comparable to related donor transplantation. LUD include six categories: spouses, distant relatives, paired-exchange, living-deceased exchange, and non-directed and directed donors.

CKD prevention in Sub-Saharan Africa: a call for governmental, nongovernmental, and community support.

The upsurge in incidence and prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in both developed and developing nations has necessitated a renewed interest in global CKD prevention because it is now regarded as a public health threat. Although CKD management is consuming a huge proportion of health care finances in developed countries, it is contributing significantly to morbidity, mortality, and decreased life expectancy in developing ones. CKD epidemiological characteristics in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are strikingly different from those observed in other regions.

The Cairo kidney center protocol for rapamycin-based sequential immunosuppression in kidney transplant recipients: 2-year outcomes.

Objective: This study examines the outcomes of de novo kidney transplants treated by a sequential protocol, designed to target the succession of immunologic events following engraftment.

Subjects: A total of 113 sequential live-donor recipients were randomized into 2 arms. Patients in arm A received prednisolone, cyclosporine, and sirolimus for 3 months (phase 1), followed by replacement of cyclosporine with mycophenolate mofetil (phase 2).

Parasitic infections in transplant recipients.

Parasitic infections are important complications of organ transplantation that are often overlooked in the differential diagnosis of post-transplantation pyrexial illness. Although their frequency is unknown, they seem to be much less prevalent than bacterial and viral infections. Only 5% of human pathogenic parasites have been reported to cause significant illness in transplant recipients.

Indices for assessment of hemodialysis adequacy: a comparison of different formulae.

Of the various indices used in the assessment of dialysis adequacy, fractional urea clearance controlled for volume of distribution "Kt/V" remains the most widely used. Its determination is best performed by formal urea kinetic modeling (UKM), which is laborious and cumbersome, and the computational softwares are largely unavailable, particularly in developing countries. Consequently, different equations have been developed that approximate the formal UKM determination.

Parasitic infections in organ transplantation.

More than 340 parasitic species infect more than 3 billion people worldwide with varying morbidity and mortality. The Tropics constitute the main reservoir of infection with the highest clinical impact, owing to favorable ecological factors. Acquisition of infection, clinical severity, and outcome of a parasitic disease depend on innate and acquired host immunity as well as the parasite's own immune response against the host when infection is established.

Correlation between Karnofsky Performance Status Scale and Short-Form Health Survey in patients on maintenance hemodialysis.

Background: Assessment of quality of life is vital inmonitoring response to various treatment measures. Various instruments, which include both generic and disease-specific instruments, are used in the assessment of health-related quality of life (HRQOL). In this study, we compare two commonly used generic instruments.

End-stage renal disease in North Africa.

There are many similarities in the profile of chronic renal disease in the five North African countries, reflecting their close resemblance in ethnic background, bioecology and socioeconomic standards. The incidence of renal disease is much higher than that in the West, yet the prevalence is relatively lower, which mirrors the inadequacy of medical care facilities. The principal causes of end-stage chronic renal disease (ESRD) are interstitial nephritis (14 to 32%), often attributed to environmental pollution and inadvertent use of medications; glomerulonephritis (11 to 24%), mostly mesangioproliferative and focal segmental sclerosis; diabetes (5 to 20%) and nephrosclerosis (5 to 21%).

Schistosomiasis and the kidney.

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic infection that affects 200 million people and is directly responsible for an annual death of 20,000 patients. Three species are responsible for most of the morbidity in humans: Schistosoma hematobium in Africa, S. mansoni in Africa and South America, and S.

Overview: end-stage renal disease in the developing world.

Although the vast majority of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) worldwide live in what is called the developing world, little is known about its epidemiology and management. With the current paucity of credible and adequately representative registries, it is justified to resort to innovative means of obtaining information. In this attempt, world-renowned leading nephrologists in 10 developing countries collaborated in filling a 103-item questionnaire addressing epidemiology, etiology, and management of ESRD in their respective countries on the basis of integrating available data from different sources.