News & Views in 2009

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  • A recent study reported that combination therapy with sirolimus plus either tacrolimus or ciclosporin resulted in effective immunosuppression in high-risk renal allograft recipients. Does such combination therapy really represent an advance in immunosuppressive therapy for these individuals?

    • William Braun
    News & Views
  • Trials that compared sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride for the prevention of contrast-induced acute kidney injury have yielded highly conflicting results. The authors of a recent meta-analysis endeavored to provide a definitive assessment of the relative efficacy of these two intravenous fluids.

    • Steven D. Weisbord
    • Paul M. Palevsky
    News & Views
  • Urine microscopy is a time-honored, readily available and commonly used noninvasive test to aid clinicians in discriminating between different forms of acute kidney injury. However, the diagnostic and prognostic importance of assessing urinary sediment is largely unknown.

    • Sean M. Bagshaw
    • R. T. Noel Gibney
    News & Views
  • At first glance, the findings of the ACCOMPLISH trial threaten to undermine the importance of diureticss in the arsenal of blood-pressure-lowering therapies. But closer examination reveals that the story is more complicated.

    • Fiona Turnbull
    News & Views
  • World Kidney Day 2009 was celebrated last month in more than 100 countries, and aimed to raise awareness that the symbiotic relationship between hypertension and kidney disease should be prevented.

    • George L. Bakris
    • Eberhard Ritz
    News & Views
  • Predicting outcomes of renal transplant recipients using standard statistical techniques is difficult. Novel approaches such as the use of artificial neural networks might improve the precision and accuracy in this area of medicine in which numerous and complex events contribute to outcomes.

    • Bruce Kaplan
    • Jesse Schold
    News & Views
  • A recent meta-analysis concluded that plasma exchange is the most effective intervention for thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura and that plasma manipulation offers no additional benefit over simple supportive therapy in hemolytic uremic syndrome. These findings must be interpreted with great caution, as response to treatment depends on the underlying disease etiology.

    • Marina Noris
    • Giuseppe Remuzzi
    News & Views