This methods in renal research article describes a new non-invasive technique to measure glomerular filtration rate in small animals. Furthermore, this technology has potential for broader use in renal research, such as in measuring the rate of clearance of albumin from the circulation in animals with proteinuria.

This Australian report reviewed the 4-year experience of kidney paired donation programme which provides an alternative source of live donor kidney transplantation.

The authors are experts in examining the role of microRNAs in kidney disease. In this invited review, the authors describe the methods they have used to isolate, quantify and analyse microRNAs in the development of diabetic nephropathy.

This study aimed to reduce cardiovascular (CV) events among dialysis patients. This is a trial design paper for the feasibility of a randomized controlled trial to evaluate beta-blockade (carvedilol 3.125 mg bid titrated to 6.25 mg bid or heart rate threshold 55 beats per minute vs placebo) among patients on dialysis. The feasibility will inform recruitment, logistics and intra-dialytic hypotension. Findings will be used to design full-scale study on CV outcomes.

This was a single-centre prospective cohort study of medical and surgical intensive care patients with acute kidney injury studying outcomes following renal replacement therapy.

Acute renal replacement therapy was initiated in 140 patients: traditional indications in 56 (40%); Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN) Stage 3 without traditional indications in 38 (27%); and AKIN Stage 1 or 2 with ‘compelling’ conditions in 46 (33%) patients.

Initiating dialysis at earlier AKIN stage did not improve survival in patients without traditional indications.

This prospective cohort-study addresses whether the survival of chronic haemodialysis patients with diabetes as a primary disease is different from those who have diabetes as a comorbidity.

This study investigated whether icodextrin use can decrease technique failure and prolong patient survival in incident PD patients. The use of icodextrin once daily can decrease technique failure and improve survival in incident PD patients. This suggests that the use of icodetrin will be of benefit for PD patients.

In this prospective randomised controlled trial the withdrawal of calcineurin inhibitor therapy in moderate risk renal allograft recipients was associated with improvement in histological status of the transplant.

This report from the Thai transplant registry summarises 25 years of data collected between 1987 and 2012. It is the largest kidney transplant registry in South-East Asia, incorporating data from 26 centres across the country with 3808 recipients included. As well as the dramatic increase in the number of kidney transplants being performed annually, the evolution of practice over this time period is also evident.

The authors implemented renal key performance indicators to improve outcomes and established limited gains in two of them, namely, the proportion of home dialysis patients dialysing and timely listing of patients for transplantation.

This is a study designed to validate the use of urinary extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer (Emmprin), matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9) and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1 (TIMP-1) as a marker of ureteric obstruction. The authors found that these three proteins increased in the obstruction group during their follow-up. The authors concluded that urinary MMP and related proteins may be noninvasive potential biomarkers that could be used for long-term follow-up of children with UPJ narrowing on conservative treatment to determine those who might develop obstruction.

In a historical prospective study in 383 within 14-gestational week pregnancies with stage 1 CKD, Piccoli et al. showed that pregnancy outcomes was not affected by hyperfiltration. However, stage 1 CKD was associated with prematurity and low birth weight.

Net endogenous acid production (NEAP), an estimate of net dietary acid intake, is a risk factor for glomerular filtration rate (GFR) decline and might contribute to excess mortality risk in chronic kidney disease. Huston et al. calculated NEAP among 16 906 adult participants in the NHANES III and interestingly found that higher NEAP is not associated with higher mortality in people with low or normal GFR. The underlying mechanism of this observation is still unestablished.

This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of diabetic kidney disease in a primary care cluster in Singapore and identify its risk factors in a multi-ethnic Asian population. This would be the first out of Asia to describe the epidemiology of diabetic kidney disease in a multi-ethnic population.