Acute kidney injury, a common and severe complication in hospitalized patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction: Acute respiratory failure (ARF) is the main clinical sign of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), but little is known about the outcome of acute kidney injury (AKI) associated with ARF.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study on clinical features of adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between March 1st and April 30th, 2020 in the district of Piacenza (Italy).

Results: Among 1894 hospitalized patients, 1701 affected by COVID-19 underwent at least two serum creatinine evaluations.

What can a home hemodialysis program offer to patients in a nursing home setting? A case series and feasibility analysis.

Introduction: Over the last decades, the number of elderly patients on dialysis has rapidly grown on account of increased life expectancy, improved care and reduced mortality rate. Therefore, cooperation between geriatricians and nephrologists has become mandatory for co-managing kidney disease in these patients. Based on renewed interest in home hemodialysis (HHD), elderly patients may benefit from not being transported from their home for therapy.

Covid-19 and its impact on nephropathic patients: the experience at Ospedale "Guglielmo da Saliceto" in Piacenza.

Roberto Scarpioni and colleagues recount their experience with the Covid-19 epidemic at the Nephrology and Dialysis Center of the "Guglielmo da Saliceto" Hospital in Piacenza, where everybody is still fighting to this moment to contain the spread of the disease and face an increasingly unsustainable clinical situation. Piacenza is only 15 km away from the main cluster of cases in the country (Codogno, in the Lodi province) and, after the closure of the Hospital in Codogno, saw an escalation in the number of patients testing positive to Covid-19. The authors describe their efforts and the practices they adopted to contain the spread of the disease among inpatients visiting the hospital's Hemodialysis Clinic.

Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Prevent Renal Fibrosis in a Rat Model of Unilateral Ureteral Obstruction by Suppressing the Renin-Angiotensin System via HuR.

We studied Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSC) effects in experimental Unilateral Ureteral Obstruction (UUO), a fibrogenic renal disease. Rats were divided in 5 groups: sham, UUO, MSC treated-UUO, ACEi treated-UUO, MSC+ACEi treated- UUO. Data were collected at 1, 7, 21 days.

Mesenchymal stromal cells reset the scatter factor system and cytokine network in experimental kidney transplantation.

Background: In former studies we showed in a rat model of renal transplantation that Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSC) prevent acute rejection in an independent way of their endowing in the graft. In this study we investigated whether MSC operate by resetting cytokine network and Scatter Factor systems, i.e.

Multiple electrolyte disorders in a neurosurgical patient: solving the rebus.

Background: It is important to ensure an adequate sodium and volume balance in neurosurgical patients in order to avoid the worsening of brain injury.Indeed, hyponatremia and polyuria, that are frequent in this patient population, are potentially harmful, especially if not promptly recognized.Differential diagnosis is often challenging, including disorders, which, in view of similar clinical pictures, present very different pathophysiological bases, such as syndrome of inappropriate antidiuresis, cerebral/renal salt wasting syndrome and diabetes insipidus.

The role of therapeutic drug monitoring in the treatment of cytomegalovirus disease in kidney transplantation.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a common complication following solid organ transplantation that may severely affect the outcome of transplantation. Ganciclovir (GCV) and its prodrug valganciclovir are successfully used to prevent and treat CMV infection; however, in a small percentage of patients, CMV gene mutations may lead to drug resistance. GCV resistance is defined as increasing CMV viremia or progressive clinical disease during prolonged antiviral therapy, due to CMV gene mutation.