Kidney international
-
Kidney international · Dec 2010
CommentProbiotics and dietary manipulations in calcium oxalate nephrolithiasis: two sides of the same coin?
Growing evidence has assigned to oxalate a pivotal role in calcium nephrolithiasis pathophysiology. A better understanding of the mechanisms behind intestinal absorption and renal excretion has led to the identification of new treatments. Among these, diet and probiotics appear promising in terms of safety and rationale. However, the discrepancy between in vitro and in vivo results requires further studies to identify the right patient target, the correct dosage, and the real modification of natural and clinical history of nephrolithiasis.
-
Kidney international · Dec 2010
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyDiet, but not oral probiotics, effectively reduces urinary oxalate excretion and calcium oxalate supersaturation.
We examined the effect of a controlled diet and two probiotic preparations on urinary oxalate excretion, a risk factor for calcium oxalate kidney stone formation, in patients with mild hyperoxaluria. Patients were randomized to a placebo, a probiotic, or a synbiotic preparation. This tested whether these probiotic preparations can increase oxalate metabolism in the intestine and/or decrease oxalate absorption from the gut. ⋯ Total urine volume and the excretion of oxalate and calcium were all strong independent determinants of urinary calcium oxalate supersaturation. Hence, dietary oxalate restriction reduced urinary oxalate excretion, but the tested probiotics did not influence urinary oxalate levels in patients on a restricted oxalate diet. However, this study suggests that dietary oxalate restriction is useful for kidney stone prevention.
-
Kidney international · Dec 2010
ReviewDo meta-analyses in nephrology change the way we treat patients?
There has been an exponential increase in the number of nephrological meta-analyses published, but their relative contribution to the nephrology literature is unclear and their influence on physician behavior and evidence-based patient care is poorly understood. We studied the nephrology literature, point-of-care resources, guidelines, and a questionnaire survey of the New York Society of Nephrology membership to understand the role and perception of meta-analyses in nephrology. ⋯ The results of our practitioner survey and our review of the nephrology literature suggest an increasing influence at the level of the individual practitioner of meta-analyses. This underlines the need to develop a better understanding of the contributions and role of meta-analyses in the literature.
-
Kidney international · Dec 2010
Urinary excretion of twenty peptides forms an early and accurate diagnostic pattern of acute kidney injury.
Early and accurate detection of acute kidney injury (AKI) is needed to prevent the progression to chronic kidney disease and to improve outcome. Here we used capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry to identify urinary peptides predictive of AKI in a training set of 87 urine samples longitudinally collected from patients in an intensive care unit. Within this patient cohort, 16 developed AKI while 14 maintained normal renal function. ⋯ After cross-validation of the training set, a good diagnostic performance of the marker pattern was found with an area under the ROC curve of 0.91. This was confirmed in a blinded validation set of 20 patients in the intensive care unit and 31 allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation patients, of which 13 had and 18 had not experienced an episode of AKI. In comparison to more established markers of AKI such as serum cystatin C and urinary kidney injury molecule-1, interleukin-18, and neutrophil gelatinase associated-lipocalin, the proteomic marker pattern was found to be of superior prognostic value, detecting AKI up to 5 days in advance of the rise in serum creatinine.