This review examines the use of very low-calorie diets among patients with chronic kidney disease and provides a practical resource describing the indications and complications of these diets in CKD.

This paper, which explored the relationship between plasma uric acid (UA) and renal haemodynamics in patients with type 2 diabetes without overt kidney disease showed that higher plasma UA is associated with lower glomerular filtration rate and effective renal plasma flow but higher effective renal vascular resistance, which may contribute to glomerular dysfunction due to impairment in kidney perfusion.

In this retrospective study of eight haemodialysis patients with calcific uraemic arteriolopathy (CUA) who underwent rheopheresis therapy, complete remission was obtained in five patients and the authors suggest that rheopheresis may be a promising approach for CUA.

This prospective observational study compared two regional citrate anticoagulation-continuous renal replacement therapy protocols in the intensive care unit, and found that a lower initial citrate dose of 2.5 mmol/L rather than a higher dose of 3.0 mmol/L was associated with less citrate-related complications without loss of anticoagulation efficacy.

This longitudinal cohort study of 94 middle-aged Chinese chronic kidney disease patients examined the relationship between vascular age and progression to end stage kidney disease/death. After adjustment for relevant confounders, the difference between vascular age (measured by brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity) and chronological age was found to be independently associated with progression to commencement of dialysis or death. This study suggests an alternative method to prognosticate risk of progression of chronic kidney disease that will require further studies to examine its relevance to routine clinical practice.

This Australian and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry study assessed the interaction between haemodialysis sessions duration and frequency and their outcome on mortality. Of 16 944 patients, 757 received >3 sessions/week and 518 received >5 h/session. Patients initiated on HD with sessions >5 h had lower mortality than patients with HD session = 5 h (adjusted hazard ratio = 0.57; 95% confidence interval = 0.44–0.74). There was no statistically significant association between session frequency and mortality.

In this questionnaire-based study, intradialytic exercise training in haemodialysis patients was associated with a lower burden of their family caregivers in that they exhibited less caregiver burden, the better quality of life and lower anxiety and depression levels.

Audit in the setting of renal transplant is not uncommon, but survey and evaluation of potential living donors who are turned down from donating kidneys are largely missing. This article fills the gap and found that informing the ineligible potential donors of available services, communicating the decision sensitively and with sufficient time, and full disclosure of their health status may all contribute to improved adjustment.

This paper examined the possible application of laser microdissection and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to renal biopsy specimens to clarify the pathogenesis of human glomerular diseases.