Malnutrition is an important risk factor for the development of sarcopenia. Recently, phase angle (phA) obtained from the bioelectrical impedance analysis is increasingly becoming known as a nutritional status marker and may be considered a good indicator to identify elderly patients at risk of sarcopenia. in this study, we investigated the prevalence of sarcopenia and the relationship between sarcopenia and phA or body mass index (BMi) as nutritional factors, and evaluated the discrimination performance of these nutritional factors for sarcopenia in 210 kidney transplant recipients. The median age was 55 years and 11.1% had sarcopenia. This prevalence of sarcopenia was lower than previous reports in kidney transplant recipients, maybe because of the differences in sarcopenia definitions and population demographics such as age, sex, race, and comorbidities. Both phA and BMi were negatively correlated with sarcopenia after adjusting for age, sex, dialysis vintage, time after transplant, presence of diabetes mellitus, hemoglobin, estimated glomerular filtration rate, and the other nutritional factor. The discrimination performance for phA and BMi had enough power to detect sarcopenia. these results suggest that phA and BMi can be used in clinical practice to predict sarcopenia in kidney transplant patients.

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The aim of the study is to clarify the role of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) in the development of renal fibrosis in mouse obstructive nephropathy. We used mice with floxed HIF-1α alleles and tamoxifen-inducible Cre/ERT2 recombinase under ubiquitin C promoter to induce global HIF-1α deletion. Following tamoxifen administration, mice were subjected to unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO). At 3, 7 and 14 days after UUO, renal gene expression profiles and interstitial fibrosis were assessed. HIF-1 dependent up-regulation of prolyl hydroxylase 3 and glucose transporter-1 was observed in the obstructed kidney at 3 and 7 days but not at 14 days after UUO. Various factors promoting fibrosis were up-regulated during the development of fibrosis. HIF-1 dependent gene expression of profibrotic molecules, plasminogen activator inhibitor 1, connective tissue growth factor, lysyl oxidase like 2 and transglutaminase 2 was observed in the obstructed kidney but such HIF-1 dependency was limited to the early onset of renal fibrosis. Global HIF-1 deletion tended to attenuate interstitial collagen I deposition at 3 days but had no effects thereafter. It is suggested that HIF-1 dependent profibrogenic mechanisms are operating at the early onset of renal fibrosis but its contribution declines with the progression in mouse UUO model.

These results demonstrated that short-term conversion from MMF to everolimus after one yr post-transplant may be a safe and effective alternate for ABO-incompatible kidney transplant recipients requiring temporary discontinuation of MMF.

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IntroductionPatients aged 60 years and older represent the fastest-growing population with end-stage renal disease worldwide, and the need for a kidney transplant among this population is increasing. Due to the severe shortage of deceased donors in Japan, ABO-incompatible living donor kidney transplantation has been performed since the late 1980s. Excellent long-term outcomes have been achieved, and the rates of graft survival in these patients are currently similar to those in recipients of ABO-compatible grafts. However, the outcomes of ABO-incompatible kidney transplantation in elderly patients over 60 years of age have not been well studied yet.Patients and methodsWe studied 4 elderly kidney transplant patients who received their grafts from ABO-incompatible living donors at our institution between December 2006 and December 2011, focusing on the immunosuppressive protocols, complications and graft survivals. The mean observation period was 21.5 months (range, 8 months to 62 months). Our immunosuppressive protocols were as follows: to remove the anti-A/B antibodies, the patients underwent 4–8 sessions of double-filtration plasmapheresis and/or plasma exchange prior to kidney transplantation until the anti-A/B titers were less than 1:16. For the patients with low anti-A/B titers (<1:512), the immunosuppressive protocol consisted of a single dose of rituximab (150 mg/m2). The patients with high anti-A/B antibody titers (≥1:512) underwent splenectomy and received 2 doses of rituximab. The pretransplant immunosuppressive protocol included B-lymphocyte suppression with 4 weeks of mycophenolate mofetil (0.5 g/day for low-titer protocol and 1 g/day for high-titer protocol).ResultsAll 4 patients underwent successful transplantation. At the end of follow-up, their mean serum creatinine was 1.18 mg/dl. No patient experienced antibody-mediated rejection or acute cellular rejection. Late-onset neutropenia occurred in two cases. Two cases experienced cytomegalovirus reactivation by cytomegalovirus antigenemia. In one patient, diffuse hemorrhage required surgical intervention. However, there were no severe complications.ConclusionsAlthough a careful evaluation of patients is needed, ABO-incompatible kidney transplantation may become a viable treatment option for elderly patients with end-stage renal disease.