TWiN (The Week in Nephrology) 8th Aug 2016

TWiN is back after a spot of vacation!

Plasmapheresis is an important weapon in the armamenterium against several renal conditions. A group of Canadian authors looked at the data from the Canadian Apheresis Registry which included every apheresis treatment in Canada since 1980 and published this review in Kidney International on the role of Plasmapheresis in Renal Diseases.

To stent(PCI) or CABG in ESRD patients has always been a difficult question. In this JASN review the authors take stock of the available literature and present the "nuances, complexities, and tradeoffs that clinicians face" in selecting the best possible therapy for ESRD patients.

AJKD has not one but two Core Curriculum articles released recently, one discusses the role of Kidney in Volume disorders and the other is an update on Nephrolithiasis.

Donor specific antibodies are associated with poor long term kidney allograft function, but DSA measurements are also expensive. In this study from the French group published in JASN, pre and post transplant DSA monitoring improved the prediction for allograft failure, probably making the case for routine monitoring? Check it out here.

A recent systematic review from Transplantation analyses the published literature on laproscopic living kidney donor surgery's peri-operative events and provides facts and numbers which should be an essential part of ourconversations with living donors.

Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh authors a review in Kidney International about the importance of preserving residual kidney function in Hemodialysis patients and gives some suggestions regarding the same.

CJASN has a new review (first published online in Feb) but now in print on the pathogenesis, diagnostic problems and management of bone disease after kidney transplant. Get it here.

All we wanted to know about the renal manifestations of Sjogren's syndrome covered in a review in Nature Reviews.

Another one from the Nature Reviews August issue is the importance of non HLA antibodies in renal transplant. Here.

- Nikhil Shah (@dr_nikhilshah)