Purpose: To compare two methods for assessing the single kidney glomerular filtration rate (SK-GFR) in humans using dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI. Materials and Methods: Images were acquired from 39 separate MR studies of patients with atherosclerotic renovascular disease (ARVD). Data from the kidneys and descending aorta were analyzed using both a Rutland-Patlak plot and a compartmental model. MR estimates of the SK-GFR were compared with standard radioisotope measures in a total of 75 kidneys. Results: Estimates of renal function using both techniques correlated well with radioisotope-assessed SK-GFR (Spearman's ϭ 0.81, Rutland-Patlak; ϭ 0.71, compartmental model). The Rutland-Patlak approach provided a near one-toone correspondence, while the compartmental method tended to overestimate SK-GFR. However, the compartmental model fits to the experimental data were significantly better than those obtained using the Rutland-Patlak approach. Conclusion: DCE-MRI of the kidneys provides data that correlate well with reference measures of SK-GFR. However, further work, including image registration, is needed to isolate measurement of glomerular filtration to the level of the renal cortex.

Objective. We analyzed misinformation about Ebola circulating on Twitter and Sina Weibo, the leading Chinese microblog platform, at the outset of the global response to the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic to help public health agencies develop their social media communication strategies. We obtained and analyzed a 1% random sample of tweets containing the keyword Ebola. We retrieved all Sina Weibo posts with Chinese keywords for Ebola for analysis. We analyzed changes in frequencies of keywords, hashtags, and Web links using relative risk (RR) and c 2 feature selection algorithm. We identified misinformation by manual coding and categorizing randomly selected sub-datasets.Results. We identified two speculative treatments (i.e., bathing in or drinking saltwater and ingestion of Nano Silver, an experimental drug) in our analysis of changes in frequencies of keywords and hashtags. Saltwater was speculated to be protective against Ebola in Batch 1 tweets but their mentions decreased in Batch 2 (RR50.11 for "salt" and RR50.14 for "water"). Nano Silver mentions were higher in Batch 2 than in Batch 1 (RR510.5). In our manually coded samples, Ebola-related misinformation constituted about 2% of Twitter and Sina Weibo content. A range of 36%-58% of the posts were news about the Ebola outbreak and 19%-24% of the posts were health information and responses to misinformation in both batches. In Batch 2, 43% of Chinese microblogs focused on the Chinese government sending medical assistance to Guinea.Conclusion. Misinformation about Ebola was circulated at a very low level globally in social media in either batch. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of social media posts can provide relevant information to public health agencies during emergency responses.

Undiagnosed CKD is common in diabetes. Current screening strategies, based on creatinine or albuminuria, fail to identify a considerable number of subjects with CKD. Incorporating eGFR into screening for CKD would identify individuals earlier in the natural history of the disease and enable early effective treatment to delay progression of CKD.

No abstract

No abstract