Ainslie M. Hildebrand

Plasma Exchange for Kidney Disease: What Is the Best Evidence?

Therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) has been used as adjunctive therapy for various kidney diseases dating back to the 1970s. In many cases, support for TPE was on mechanistic grounds given the potential to remove unwanted large molecular-weight substances such as autoantibodies, immune complexes, myeloma light chains, and cryoglobulins. More recently, growing evidence from randomized controlled trials, meta-analyses, and prospective studies has provided insights into more rational use of this therapy. This report describes the role of TPE for the 6 most common kidney indications in the 2013 Canadian Apheresis Group (CAG) registry and the evidence that underpins current recommendations and practice. These kidney indications include thrombotic microangiopathy, antiglomerular basement membrane disease, anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis, cryoglobulinemia, recurrence of focal and segmental glomerulosclerosis in the kidney allograft, and kidney transplantation.

Glomerular disease search filters for Pubmed, Ovid Medline, and Embase: a development and validation study.

BackgroundTools to enhance physician searches of Medline and other bibliographic databases have potential to improve the application of new knowledge in patient care. This is particularly true for articles about glomerular disease, which are published across multiple disciplines and are often difficult to track down. Our objective was to develop and test search filters for PubMed, Ovid Medline, and Embase that allow physicians to search within a subset of the database to retrieve articles relevant to glomerular disease.MethodsWe used a diagnostic test assessment framework with development and validation phases. We read a total of 22,992 full text articles for relevance and assigned them to the development or validation set to define the reference standard. We then used combinations of search terms to develop 997,298 unique glomerular disease filters. Outcome measures for each filter included sensitivity, specificity, precision, and accuracy. We selected optimal sensitive and specific search filters for each database and applied them to the validation set to test performance.ResultsHigh performance filters achieved at least 93.8% sensitivity and specificity in the development set. Filters optimized for sensitivity reached at least 96.7% sensitivity and filters optimized for specificity reached at least 98.4% specificity. Performance of these filters was consistent in the validation set and similar among all three databases.ConclusionsPubMed, Ovid Medline, and Embase can be filtered for articles relevant to glomerular disease in a reliable manner. These filters can now be used to facilitate physician searching.

Attending Rounds: Microangiopathic Hemolytic Anemia with Renal Insufficiency

The classification of thrombotic microangiopathy has evolved and expanded due to treatment and advances in understanding of the diseases associated with this clinical presentation. The three clinical forms of thrombotic microangiopathy-thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), and disseminated intravascular coagulation-encompass a wide range of disorders that can be classified as either primary (idiopathic) or secondary to another identifiable disease or clinical context. Identification of an inhibitor to a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with a thrombospondin type 1 motif, member 13 (ADAMTS13) in the idiopathic and acute forms of TTP, recognition of the absence of ADAMTS13 inhibition in diarrheal HUS, identification of complement abnormalities in atypical HUS, and a better understanding of the role of plasma therapy, rituximab, and eculizumab therapy have all had a major effect on current understanding of the thrombotic microangiopathies. In this Attending Rounds, a patient with a thrombotic microangiopathy is presented, along with discussion highlighting the difficulty of differentiating TTP from HUS and disseminated intravascular coagulation, the need for a prompt diagnosis, and the role for plasma therapy in appropriately selected patients. The discussion attempts to provide a simple clinical approach to the diagnosis, treatment options, and future course of adults and children suffering from a thrombotic microangiopathy.

Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura and Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome in 2014—Current Knowledge and Outcomes with Plasma Exchange

Great progress has been made in our understanding of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura and hemolytic uremic syndrome since Moschowitz first described this entity in 1925. This review provides a contemporary insight into the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and classification of these disorders in both adults and children. Lessons learned from major worldwide registry data and disease epidemics, including the 2011 German outbreak, are discussed with recommendations for management of specific clinical conditions based on available evidence, including the role of plasma exchange, rituximab, and eculizumab.

Blood pressure targets in chronic kidney disease: does proteinuria dictate how low we go?

See related research article by Lv and colleagues on page [949][1] and at [www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.121468][2] Preventing kidney failure, cardiovascular events and death among patients with chronic kidney disease is important to patients, their care providers and health care systems, and