Anemia is an inevitable complication of hemodialysis, and the primary cause is erythropoietin deficiency. After diagnosis, treatment begins with an erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA). However, some patients remain anemic even after receiving this medication. This study aimed to investigate the factors associated with resistance to recombinant human erythropoietin therapy with epoetin alfa (αEPO). We performed a prospective, longitudinal study of hemodialysis patients receiving treatment with αEPO at our reference hospital from July 2015 to June 2016. Clinical data was collected, and the response to αEPO treatment was evaluated using the erythropoietin resistance index (ERI). The ERI was defined as the weekly weight-adjusted αEPO dose (U/kg per week)/hemoglobin level (g/dL). A longitudinal linear regression model was fitted with random effects to verify the relationships between clinical and laboratory data and ERI. We enrolled 99 patients (average age, 45.7 (±17.6) years; male, 51.5%; 86.8% with hypertension). The ERI showed a significant positive association with serum ferritin and C-reactive protein, percentage interdialytic weight gain, and continuous usage of angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) hypertension medication. The ERI was negatively associated with serum iron and albumin, age, urea reduction ratio, and body mass index. Our findings indicate that resistance to αEPO was related to a low serum iron reserve, an inflammatory state, poor nutritional status, and continuous usage of ARBs.

Anemia is a frequent complication of chronic kidney disease, and its primary cause is erythropoietin deficiency. After diagnosis, treatment begins with administration of an erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA). However, some patients present with resistance to ESA, which needs to be reversed, as it can increase the risk of death in patients with kidney disease. Therefore, we provide a discussion of the current literature regarding the factors that can modify the response to this class of drugs and the strategies that can be considered to optimize the benefits of treating anemia.

supplementation promotes improvement of chronic diarrhea of unknown etiology in patient with chronic kidney disease and provides better outcomes in dialysis.

Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that the variability of the clinical response to infection caused by Mycobacterium leprae is associated with host genetic factors. The present study investigated the frequency of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II (DRB1) alleles in patients with leprosy from São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil. A case-control study was performed in 85 individuals with leprosy and 85 healthy subjects. All samples were analysed via polymerase chain reaction-sequence specific oligonucleotide probes. The HLA-DRB1*16 allele showed a higher frequency in the group with leprosy [(9.41% vs. 4.12%) odds ratio (OR) = 2.41 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.96-6.08) p = 0.05], whereas the HLA-DRB1*11 allele was less frequent in the group with leprosy [(6.47% vs. 11.76%) OR = 0.51 95% CI (0.23-1.12) p = 0.09]. The frequency of HLA-DRB1* alleles between the control group and leprosy patient subgroups presenting different forms of the disease showed that the HLA-DRB1*16 (16.13% vs. 8.24%, OR = 4.10, CI = 1.27-13.27, p = 0.010) and HLA-DRB1*14 (5% vs. 3.53%, OR = 4.63, CI = 1.00-21.08, p = 0.032) alleles were significantly more frequent in patients with different clinical subtypes of leprosy. The sample size was a limitation in this study. Nevertheless, the results demonstrated the existence of a genetic susceptibility associated with the clinical forms of leprosy. The low frequency of the HLA-DRB1*11 allele should be further studied to investigate the possible protective effect of this allele.

The objective was to evaluate the association between nutritional status and the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in remaining quilombolas. Cross-sectional study carried out on 32 remaining quilombola communities in the municipality of Alcântara-MA. The nutritional indicators (IN) used were: body mass index (BMI); Waist circumference (WC); Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR); Waist-to-height ratio (WHtR); conicity index (CI) and estimated visceral adipose tissue (VAT). GFR was estimated from the CKD-EPI creatinine-cystatin C formula. The Shapiro Wilk test was used to evaluate the normality of the quantitative variables. In order to compare the second IN sex, the chi-square test was applied. The Anova or Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to verify the association between IN and GFR. Of the 1,526 remaining quilombolas studied, 89.5% were black or brown, 51.2% were women, 88.6% belonged to economic classes D and E and 61.2% were farmers or fishermen. Clinical investigation revealed 29.2% of hypertensive patients, 8.5% of diabetics and 3.1% with reduced GFR. The BMI revealed 45.6% of the remaining quilombolas with excess weight. When compared to men, women presented a higher prevalence of overweight by BMI (56.6% vs 33.8%, p <0.001) and abdominal obesity CC (52.3% vs 4.3%), WHR (76,5% vs 5.8%), WHtR (82.3% vs 48.9%) and VAT (27.1% vs 14.5%) (p <0.001). Comparing the means of IN according to the GFR, it was observed that the higher the mean value of the IN lower the GFR (p <0.05). The GFR reduced with increasing mean values of nutritional indicators of abdominal obesity, regardless of sex.