Volume 16 Issue 7, July 2020

eHealth is gaining momentum in nephrology, although evidence for its efficacy remains unclear and challenges to its widespread adoption persist. Successful integration of eHealth into kidney care will require patient engagement to develop effective interventions and issues such as data validity, regulation, oversight and adequate infrastructure to be addressed.

The PEXIVAS clinical trial demonstrated that, in patients with anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody-associated vasculitis (AAV), adjuvant plasma exchange did not reduce the risk of all-cause mortality or end-stage kidney disease and a reduced dose of glucocorticoids was not inferior to standard dosing. These findings might warrant a change in standard AAV therapy.

New data suggest that plasma soluble urokinase receptor (suPAR) might be a predictive biomarker and potential therapeutic target for acute kidney injury (AKI). However, many questions remain regarding the potential of suPAR to inform clinical decision making, identify patients for enrolment in clinical trials and add to the understanding of AKI pathogenesis.

This Review describes advances in genomic analysis that have enabled novel genetic discoveries, more than doubled the number of genetic loci associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus and uncovered several novel candidate genes for diabetes complications.

In this Review, the authors discuss general dendritic cell biology, including their development, trafficking and functional differentiation. The unique features of kidney dendritic cells are also examined, as well as their role in various acute and chronic types of kidney disease.

This Review provides the non-expert reader with an overview of the different steps involved in the analysis of single-cell RNA sequencing data. The authors also provide insight into the strengths and pitfalls of available analysis tools.