NY Times: hirty-eight end-stage renal patients, most of them illegal immigrants, would receive the dialysis they need to stay alive at no cost under a rough agreement brokered Tuesday among local dialysis providers and Atlanta’s safety-net hospital, Grady Memorial.

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JASN early release: Symptomatic intradialytic hypotension is a common complication of hemodialysis (HD). The application of convective therapies to the outpatient setting may improve outcomes, including intradialytic hypotension. In this multicenter, open-label, randomized controlled study, we randomly assigned 146 long-term dialysis patients to HD (n = 70), online predilution hemofiltration (HF; n = 36), or online predilution hemodiafiltration (HDF; n = 40). The primary end point was the frequency of intradialytic symptomatic hypotension (ISH). Compared with the run-in period, the frequency of sessions with ISH during the evaluation period increased for HD (7.1 to 7.9%) and decreased for both HF (9.8 to 8.0%) and HDF (10.6 to 5.2%) (P < 0.001). Mean predialysis systolic BP increased by 4.2 mmHg among those who were assigned to HDF compared with decreases of 0.6 and 1.8 mmHg among those who were assigned to HD and HF, respectively (P = 0.038). Multivariate logistic regression demonstrated significant risk reductions in ISH for both HF (odds ratio 0.69; 95% confidence interval 0.51 to 0.92) and HDF (odds ratio 0.46, 95% confidence interval 0.33 to 0.63). There was a trend toward higher dropout for those who were assigned to HF (P = 0.107). In conclusion, compared with conventional HD, convective therapies (HDF and HF) reduce ISH in long-term dialysis patients.

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FDA: RECALLING FIRM/MANUFACTURER......Recalling Firm: Fresenius Medical Care North America, Waltham, MA, by letter on June 28, 2010..........Manufacturer: Fresenius USA, Inc., Walnut Creek, CA. Firm initiated recall is ongoing..............REASON. Power cords may fail if the prongs crack or fail at the plug, and may become a fire/burn/shock hazard or delay/interrupt therapy.

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EurekAlert: "The efficiency of drug release in this study has also confirmed that one single dose a day is most likely enough in treating the virus."We believe that INX-189 offers the possibility of more potency against Hepatitis, more rapid action in the liver, and fewer side effects than existing treatments."In 2008, laboratory tests showed INX-189 killed 90 per cent of the virus at very low (nanomolar) concentration, making it the most potent compound of its kind developed to date.

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EurekAlert: Published this week in Science the findings demonstrate that the antimalarial candidate, spiroindolone NITD609, is effective against both strains of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium (P.) falciparum and P. vivax. Through a novel mechanism NITD609 rapidly clears plasmodium in a malaria mouse model and shows pharmacological properties compatible with a once-daily dosing regimen. Copies of the embargoed Science paper are available at scipak@aaas.org.

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UCSF: The device, which would include thousands of microscopic filters as well as a bioreactor to mimic the metabolic and water-balancing roles of a real kidney, is being developed in a collaborative effort by engineers, biologists and physicians nationwide, led by Shuvo Roy, PhD, in the UCSF Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences.

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UCLA: Lupus Research Institute-funded researcher Betty Tsao, PhD, at the University of California Los Angeles has discovered that humans—males in particular—with a variant form of the immune receptor gene "Toll Like Receptor 7 (TLR7)" are at increased risk of developing the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus). This breakthrough finding offers renewed hope for developing more targeted treatments.

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EurekAlert: Olefsky and colleagues looked at cellular receptors known to respond to fatty acids. They eventually narrowed their focus to a G-protein receptor called GPR120, one of a family of signaling molecules involved in numerous cellular functions. The GPR120 receptor is found only on pro-inflammatory macrophages in mature fat cells. When the receptor is turned off, the macrophage produces inflammatory effects. But exposed to omega-3 fatty acids, specifically docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), the GPR120 receptor is activated and generates a strong anti-inflammatory effect."It's just an incredibly potent effect," said Olefsky, a professor of medicine and associate dean of scientific affairs for the UC San Diego School of Medicine. "The omega-3 fatty acids switch on the receptor, killing the inflammatory response."

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EurekAlert: To cause an infection, bacteria must first adhere to a host, then gather together in colonies to form a biofilm. In the current study, Camesano recruited healthy female students at WPI to drink either cranberry juice cocktail or a placebo fluid that looked and tasted like cranberry juice. The subjects provides urine samples at prescribed intervals after drinking the juice or placebo, and those samples were incubated in petri dishes with several strains of E. coli and a single strain of S. aureus. Camesano's team stained the bacteria with a special dye, then used a spectrophotometer to measure the density of the bacterial colonies in the dishes over time. Their analysis showed that the urine samples from subjects who had recently consumed cranberry juice cocktail significantly reduced the ability of E. coli and S. aureus to form biofilms on the surface of the dishes.

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Individuals who received a non-kidney organ transplant in the past may be more likely to be listed for a kidney transplant prior to initiation of dialysis (pre-emptive listing) than other candidates, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society...

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Kidney transplants that show a combination of fibrosis (scarring) and inflammation after one year are at higher risk of long-term transplant failure, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).

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NEJM: Conclusions: In overall analyses, intensive blood-pressure control had no effect on kidney disease progression. However, there may be differential effects of intensive blood-pressure control in patients with and those without baseline proteinuria.

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NEJM: Subjects with preexisting cardiovascular conditions who were receiving long-term sibutramine treatment had an increased risk of nonfatal myocardial infarction and nonfatal stroke but not of cardiovascular death or death from any cause.

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Science Blog: Scientists from the National Institutes of Health and University of Chicago have found a promising treatment method that in laboratory mice reduces the severity of skin and soft-tissue damage caused by USA300, the leading cause of community-associated Staphylococcus aureus infections in the United States. By neutralizing a key toxin associated with the bacteria, they found they could greatly reduce the damaging effects of the infection on skin and soft tissue.

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EurekAlert: To make this discovery, the researchers studied two groups of transgenic mice, one group with a genetic deletion of the Sprouty gene in cells that develop into fat and bone, and the second group with high levels of expressed Sprouty proteins in the same cell types. Results showed that the mice with the deleted Sprouty gene had increased body fat and loss of bone mass similar to osteoporosis as compared to normal mice. Bone loss was then reversed by adding more Sprouty protein. The group with excess Sprouty expression produced lean mice with increased bone mass.

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Science Daily: In the largest and most reliable study of its type, the University of Oxford (UK) and the University of Sydney (Australia) have demonstrated that statin therapy is not a cause of increased cancer rates and deaths.

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Reuters: An experimental drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer reduces the risk of stroke by more than half compared with aspirin, with no significant rise in major bleeding, researchers said on Tuesday. The results boost prospects for apixaban, one of several new anticoagulant pills aiming to displace the old, problematic heart drug warfarin as a stroke preventer for patients with a common heart arrhythmia called atrial fibrillation (AF).

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A new study warns that seniors who take a common antibiotic combination for urinary tract infections are at increased risk of developing potentially life-threatening high potassium levels.

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Reviewed by Dori F. Zaleznik, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston. Variability in blood hemoglobin levels, associated with the use of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs), does not predict mortality in dialysis patients, according to a large European population...

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Wall Street Journal: Genzyme Corp. on Monday confirmed that its board had unanimously rejected an $18.5 billion all-cash offer from Sanofi-Aventis SA, raising the prospect of a hostile takeover attempt from the French pharmaceutical company.

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