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.

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.

Effect of sirolimus on malignancy and survival after kidney transplantation: systematic review and meta-analysis of individual patient data.

Objective: To examine risk of malignancy and death in patients with kidney transplant who receive the immunosuppressive drug sirolimus.

Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis of individual patient data.

Data Sources: Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials from inception to March 2013.

Glomerulonephritis in disadvantaged populations.

Glomerulonephritis (GN) still enjoys a high rank as a cause of chronic kidney disease (CKD) worldwide. Its burden is particularly manifest in disadvantaged populations, with a proportional contribution up to 6-folds compared to that in the USA. There are several overlapping risk factors that render a particular population "disadvantaged" in this respect.

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).

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.

The acute effect of intravenously administered recombinant human erythropoietin on the immune response of uremic patients maintained on regular hemodialysis.

The uremic patient on regular hemodialysis (RHD) is subjected to a wide range of immune modulators including the uremic state per se, multiple transfusions and exposure to bioincompatible materials and endotoxins. Erythropoietin (EPO) therapy may raise concern about its potential influence on this complex scenario. To envisage this issue, 15 adequately selected patients, stable on RHD, were randomly assigned in a 2:1 ratio into EPO and placebo groups.