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Byline: V. Kulkarni, D. Nadgir, S. Tapiawala, A. Malabari, A. Kalgikar, R. Kela, M. Nadkar, S. Kamath, A. Shah Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (ADEM) is an acute or subacute condition characterized [...]

Background: Maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients face disadvantages with higher risk of acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infection, atypical manifestations, and associated multiple comorbidities. We describe patients' outcomes with symptomatic COVID-19 on MHD in a large cohort of patients from India., Methods: Data were collected prospectively from hemodialysis units in 11 public and private hospitals between March 15, 2020, and July 31, 2020. The survival determinants were analyzed using stepwise backward elimination cox-regression analysis., Results: Of the 263 total patients (mean age 51.76 ± 13.63 years and males 173) on MHD with symptomatic COVID-19, 35 (13.3%) died. Those who died were older (p = 0.01), had higher frequency of diabetic kidney disease (p = 0.001), comorbidities (p = 0.04), and severe COVID-19 (p = 0.001). Mortality was higher among patients on twice-weekly MHD than thrice-weekly (p = 0.001) and dialysis through central venous catheter (CVC) as compared to arteriovenous fistula (p = 0.001). On multivariate analysis, CVC use (HR 2.53, 95% CI 1.26-5.07, p = 0.009), disease severity (HR = 3.54, 95% CI 1.52-8.26, p = 0.003), and noninvasive ventilatory support (HR 0.59, 95% CI 0.25-0.99, p = 0.049) had significant effect on mortality., Conclusion: The adjusted mortality risk of COVID-19 in MHD patients is high in patients associated with severe COVID-19 and patients having CVC as vascular access., (© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: It is known that secondary hyperparathyroidism (SH) and particularly skeletal changes is a severe condition in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Sagliker syndrome (SS) is a very prominent feature in CKD including uglifying human face appearances, short stature, extremely severe maxillary and mandibulary changes, soft tissues in the mouth, teeth-dental abnormalities, finger tip changes and severe psychological problems., Methods: In the last 8 years we have confronted 36 extremely incredible SS cases in CKD by performing an international study in Turkey, India, Malaysia, Romania and Egypt., Results: In addition to the uglifying human face appearance, we found extremely severe X-ray and tomographical, pantomographical, histo-pathological changes in the head and whole body. Finally, we compared previous face pictures with recent ones. Just a few years earlier they had been pretty and good-looking young boys and girls. By investigating their history, we understood they had not received proper therapy and were in the late-irreversible period., Conclusion: SS is a serious and severe complication of CKD. Late and improper treatment leads to abnormalities throughout skeleton particularly in the skull and face. Changes particularly in children and teens become irreversible-disastrous for appearance and psychological health. Appropriate treatment must begin as early as possible in specialized centers. It is possible that SS patients may survive long-term with dialysis, but with all those particular changes could anyone claim this type of life would continue in an acceptable way without extending their height, correcting all the changes in the skull and face, remodeling new faces and most particularly convincing the patients to deal with all those tragi-dramatic psychological problems?

Objective: It is known that skeletal changes due to secondary hyperparathyroidism (SH) can be severe in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Recently described Sagliker syndrome (SS) is a very striking and prominent feature of SH in CKD, including an uglifying appearance to the face, short stature, extremely severe maxillary and mandibulary changes, soft tissue in the mouth, teeth/dental abnormalities, fingertip changes, knee and scapula deformities, hearing abnormalities, and neurological and, more important, severe psychological problems., Design, Setting, Patients: In the past 8 years, we have encountered 40 cases of SS in SH and CKD by performing an international study in Turkey, India, Romania, Egypt, Maleysia, Tunis, and China., Results: The medical history of these patients showed that they did not receive proper therapy. Changes, particularly in children and teenagers, become irreversible, which was disastrous for the patients both aesthetically and psychologically., Conclusion: Treatment must begin early and be the appropriate treatment given in centers with sophisticated skills. Otherwise, the inability to correct all the changes in the skull and face, to remodel a new face, to extending the height, and, most important, to convince the patients to face the dramatic psychological problems can be catastrophic for those patients.

A preliminary report from our unit previously suggested that diabetic patients on continuous cyclic peritoneal dialysis (CCPD) have higher ultrafiltration (UF) with icodextrin than non-diabetic patients. To confirm this observation, we did a retrospective analysis of our patients (17 diabetic and 23 non-diabetic) who were on stable CCPD prescription using a long-day dwell with icodextrin. We collected daily UF data from these patients' records for 30 days. The two groups showed no significant difference with respect to age, gender, hemoglobin, serum albumin, peritoneal dialysis and icodextrin vintage, peritoneal membrane characteristics, CCPD prescription, and peritoneal and residual renal clearance. The overnight net UF achieved with the cycler with standard glucose dialysate was similar in the two groups (850+/-379 in diabetic vs 713+/-484 ml/day in non-diabetic, P=0.34). However, UF with icodextrin during the day dwell (14.8+/-0.8 h) was significantly higher in diabetics than non-diabetics (348+/-198 vs 137+/-311 ml/day, P=0.02). Our results show that icodextrin produces significantly higher UF in long-day dwell in diabetic ESRD patients on CCPD than in non-diabetic patients. The reason for this difference is not clear.

Objectives: (1)To assess the nutritional status of chronic renal insufficiency (CRI) and dialysis patients using the subjective global assessment (SGA) method. (2) To validate SGA in assessing the nutritional status of this group of patients., Participants: The nutritional status of 81 patients was evaluated using dietary recall, anthropometry, biochemical parameters and SGA. There were 51 males and 30 females. Their mean +/- SD age was 53.8 +/- 14.3 years. There were 27 patients with (CRI) on conservative management, 38 patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) on maintenance hemodialysis (HD) and 16 patients with ESRD on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD)., Methods: SGA was done using seven variables derived from medical history and physical examination. Each variable was scored from 1-7 depending on the severity. The SGA scores were correlated with the standard methods., Results: Thirteen (48%) patients with CRI, 22 (58%) patients on HD and 8 (50%) patients on CAPD were malnourished. It was seen that the dietary protein & calorie intake and serum albumin level did not correlate well with the SGA scores. The anthropometric measures correlated with the SGA scores (Skinfolds and SGA r = 0.2, MAC and SGA r = 0.5 and MAMC and SGA r = 0.5)., Conclusion: Malnutrition is an important complication in CRI patients and ESRD patients on dialysis. SGA is a reliable method of assessing nutritional status. Most important is the fact that it can detect the changing trend of nutritional status, which may be missed by one-time anthropometry and biochemical methods.

Hyperkalemia is a commonly encountered electrolyte disturbance in patients with renal insufficiency. It develops very rapidly when potassium is supplemented while a patient is on a potassium-sparing diuretic. Most often it remains asymptomatic and manifests in the form of electrocardiographic changes. Muscle weakness and paralysis although described is seldom observed in clinical practice. We report one such case.

Infection is a major problem after transplantation. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most common viral infection affecting transplant patients. We describe a case of CMV infection with rare clinical manifestation in the form of nasal polyp. Patient presented 6 weeks following renal transplantation with history of fever and stuffy nose. On evaluation he was found to have nasal polyp which was excised. Histopathology revealed characteristic CMV inclusion bodies. Patient responded to ganciclovir therapy and is presently doing well eighteen months after transplantation.