Volume 14 Issue 9, September 2018

Intensive lowering of blood pressure can decrease the risk of death and cardiovascular events in individuals with hypertension. However, a reanalysis of data from the SPRINT and ACCORD trials suggests that intensive blood pressure lowering increases the risk of chronic kidney disease.

Three reports from the TRACERx Renal study delineate the precise origin and evolution of clear cell renal cell carcinoma in minute detail. The insights gained from these studies might provide improved disease prognostics and identify novel therapeutic targets.

This Review updates the evidence base for the administration of intravenous fluids to critically ill patients. Finfer and colleagues also discuss unresolved questions, such as whether buffered solutions are better than normal saline, and the benefits and harms of restrictive approaches to fluid administration.

Improved understanding of HLAs together with advances in HLA typing and antibody detection techniques have enabled transplantation of sensitized patients. Here, the authors discuss these advances as well as novel approaches to desensitization, immunomodulation and tolerance induction.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have led to a paradigm shift in cancer therapy; however, these agents can induce immune-related adverse events (irAEs) in off-target organs. This Review describes the mechanism of action of ICI therapies and how these agents induce irAEs in the kidney and heart.

This Perspectives article describes supporting and contradicting data regarding the role of podocyte B7-1 in the pathogenesis of various podocytopathies and highlights issues that need to be addressed to standardize approaches to the study of this protein.