Kidney International (2009) 76, 818-824; doi:10.1038/ki.2009.247; published online 15 July 2009″
“Steroid-free immunosuppression in kidney transplantation has been gaining popularity over the past decade, as documented by a continuous and steady rise in the number of kidney transplant patients discharged on steroid-free regimens. This increased interest in steroid-free immunosuppression is fueled by the recognition that half of transplant loss is related to patient death due to cardiovascular disease and/or infectious complications and that the long-term use of steroids contributes to such elevated cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The availability of newer and

more potent immunosuppressive agents has furthered such interest. Many clinical trials over the past two decades PU-H71 have demonstrated the feasibility of steroid-free regimens, at the expense of a slight increase in the rate of acute rejection, which is an important end point in any clinical trial of relatively short duration. The largest epidemiological study

to date has reassured the transplant community that the selective use of steroid-free immunosuppression in kidney transplant patients provides no inferior outcome in patient and graft survival at intermediate term. Steroid-free regimens have the potential selleck products to improve cardiovascular risk profile. The challenges that remain are to identify the subset of kidney transplant patients who may not benefit from steroid-free immunosuppression and to demonstrate the survival advantage of steroid-free immunosuppresion in suitable kidney transplant candidates. Kidney

International (2009) 76, 825-830; doi:10.1038/ki.2009.248; published online 22 July 2009″
“Preeclampsia is a systemic disease that results from placental defects and occurs in about 5-8% of pregnancies worldwide. Preeclampsia is a disease of many theories, wherein investigators put forward their favorite mechanistic ideas, each with a causal appeal for the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. In reality, the patho-mechanism of preeclampsia remains Amylase largely unknown. Preeclampsia, as diagnosed in patients today, is likely a heterogeneous collection of disease entities that share some common features but also show important differences. Therefore, one single mechanism may never be found to explain all the variants of preeclampsia. Current research must focus on evaluating such diverse mechanisms, as well as the possible common effector pathways. Here, we provide a discussion of several possible mechanisms and putative theories proposed for preeclampsia, with particular emphasis on the recent discovery of a new genetic mouse model offering new opportunities to explore experimental therapies. Kidney International (2009) 76, 831-837; doi:10.1038/ki.2009.284; published online 5 August 2009″
“Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is an anti-oxidant enzyme normally upregulated in response to oxidant injury.