Temporal artery involvement in AL amyloidosis: an important differential diagnosis for giant cell arteritis. A case report and literature review.

AL amyloidosis (AL) is a systemic disorder due to extracellular tissue deposition of amyloid fibrils, composed of immunoglobulin light chains. Since the description of AL involving temporal arteries in 1986, this disorder has been known as one of the differential diagnoses of giant cell arteritis (GCA). We encountered a case of an elderly female presenting with headache and tender and enlarged temporal arteries, that was pathologically diagnosed with temporal artery involvement of AL due to Bence-Jones-type MM.

Icodextrin increases technique survival rate in peritoneal dialysis patients with diabetic nephropathy by improving body fluid management: a randomized controlled trial.

Background And Objectives: There are still controversies whether peritoneal dialysis (PD) with icodextrin preserves residual renal and peritoneal membrane functions in patients with diabetes. However, there are no randomized controlled and long-term clinical trials in newly started PD patients with diabetic nephropathy.

Design, Setting, Participants, & Measurements: Forty-one patients with diabetic nephropathy with ESRD were enrolled and randomly assigned to the glucose group (GLU) treated with 8 L of 1.

Clinical usefulness of a prognostic score in histological analysis of renal biopsy in patients with lupus nephritis.

Objective: To evaluate active and chronic lesions in association with renal outcome according to the International Society of Nephrology/Renal Pathology Society classification in patients with lupus nephritis.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of 99 biopsy-proven subjects with lupus nephritis from 1990 to 2006 was performed in our center using the new classification. Each histological lesion was evaluated by multivariate survival analysis as predictive factor for renal insufficiency in patients with lupus nephritis, and independent predictors were graded to develop the prognostic score based on the regression coefficient.