Prognostic Biomarkers in Kidney Transplantation: A Systematic Review and Critical Appraisal.

Significance Statement: Why are there so few biomarkers accepted by health authorities and implemented in clinical practice, despite the high and growing number of biomaker studies in medical research ? In this meta-epidemiological study, including 804 studies that were critically appraised by expert reviewers, the authors have identified all prognostic kidney transplant biomarkers and showed overall suboptimal study designs, methods, results, interpretation, reproducible research standards, and transparency. The authors also demonstrated for the first time that the limited number of studies challenged the added value of their candidate biomarkers against standard-of-care routine patient monitoring parameters. Most biomarker studies tended to be single-center, retrospective studies with a small number of patients and clinical events.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on publication dynamics and non-COVID-19 research production.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected health systems and medical research worldwide but its impact on the global publication dynamics and non-COVID-19 research has not been measured. We hypothesized that the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted the scientific production of non-COVID-19 research.

Methods: We conducted a comprehensive meta-research on studies (original articles, research letters and case reports) published between 01/01/2019 and 01/01/2021 in 10 high-impact medical and infectious disease journals (New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, Nature Medicine, British Medical Journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, Lancet Global Health, Lancet Public Health, Lancet Infectious Disease and Clinical Infectious Disease).

Infections in the first year after renal transplant.

Infections are frequent complications of kidney transplants. We aimed at determining the frequency and type of infections that occur in renal transplant recipients during the early (0-1 month), intermediate (1-6 months) and late (6-12 months) post-transplant period and analyzing the risk factors for infection. To this aim, we conducted a retrospective cohort study on 1-year post-transplant follow-up in two third-level university hospitals in Cordoba city.

Renal Transplantation in Patients Older Than 60 Years With High Comorbidity. Is There a Survival Benefit? A Multicenter Study in Argentina.

Background: The impact of renal transplantation (RT) in the elderly with many comorbid conditions is a matter of concern. The aim of our study was to assess the impact of RT on the survival of patients older than 60 years compared with those remaining on the waiting list (WL) according to their comorbidities.

Methods: In this multicentric observational retrospective cohort study, we included all patients older than 60 years old admitted on the WL from 01 January 2006 to 31 December 2016.