The STARMEN trial indicates that alternating treatment with corticosteroids and cyclophosphamide is superior to sequential treatment with tacrolimus and rituximab in primary membranous nephropathy.

Background and objectives: Isolated case reports have shown a beneficial effect of rituximab on pediatric patients with primary FSGS, but there is no information about rituximab treatment of FSGS in adults.Design, setting, participants, & measurements: All patients who had biopsy-proven FSGS and were treated with rituximab in Spain were identified, independent of their positive or negative response, among the nephrology departments that belong to the Spanish Group for the Study of Glomerular Diseases (GLOSEN). Their characteristics and outcome after rituximab treatment were studied.Results: Eight patients were identified. Rituximab failed to improve nephrotic syndrome in five of eight patients, who continued to show massive proteinuria and exhibited a rapidly deteriorating renal function in two cases. Among the remaining three patients, two of them showed an improvement of renal function and a remarkable proteinuria reduction and one experienced a beneficial but transitory effect after rituximab. There were no differences in clinical or laboratory characteristics or in the CD20 B lymphocyte count after rituximab between these three patients and the five who had a negative response. The only difference was in the regimen of rituximab administration: Whereas the five patients with a negative response received only four weekly consecutive infusions of 375 mg/m 2 , the three remaining patients received additional doses of rituximab.Conclusions: Only a minority (three of eight) of patients in our series of adult patients with FSGS showed a positive influence of rituximab. More studies are necessary to characterize further the optimal dosages and the mechanisms of action of rituximab in FSGS.

SummaryBackground and objectives A specific method is required for estimating glomerular filtration rate GFR in hospitalized patients. Our objective was to validate the Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPI) equation and four cystatin C (CysC)-based equations in this setting.Design, setting, participants, & measurements This was an epidemiologic, cross-sectional study in a random sample of hospitalized patients (n ϭ 3114). We studied the accuracy of the CKD-EPI and four CysC-based equations-based on (1) CysC alone or (2) adjusted by gender; (3) age, gender, and race; and (4) age, gender, race, and creatinine, respectively-compared with GFR measured by iohexol clearance (mGFR). Clinical, biochemical, and nutritional data were also collected.Results The CysC equation 3 significantly overestimated the GFR (bias of 7.4 ml/min per 1.73 m 2 ). Most of the error in creatinine-based equations was attributable to calculated muscle mass, which depended on patient's nutritional status. In patients without malnutrition or reduced body surface area, the CKD-EPI equation adequately estimated GFR. Equations based on CysC gave more precise mGFR estimates when malnutrition, extensive reduction of body surface area, or loss of muscle mass were present (biases of 1 and 1.3 ml/min per 1.73 m 2 for equations 2 and 4, respectively, versus 5.9 ml/min per 1.73 m 2 for CKD-EPI). ConclusionsThese results suggest that the use of equations based on CysC and gender, or CysC, age, gender, and race, is more appropriate in hospitalized patients to estimate GFR, since these equations are much less dependent on patient's nutritional status or muscle mass than the CKD-EPI equation.

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This paper describes the case of a patient with HCV, without previous evidence of nephropathy, who following two well-tolerated cycles of treatment with interferon alone developed nephrotic syndrome after a third attempt with ribavirin associated with peginterferon alfa 2b. The patient exhibited a total remission when the antiviral treatment was discontinued.

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