Summary The COVID‐19 pandemic has significantly changed the landscape of kidney transplantation in the United States and worldwide. In addition to adversely impacting allograft and patient survival in postkidney transplant recipients, the current pandemic has affected all aspects of transplant care, including transplant referrals and listing, organ donation rates, organ procurement and shipping, and waitlist mortality. Critical decisions were made during this period by transplant centers and individual transplant physicians taking into consideration patient safety and resource utilization. As countries have begun administering the COVID vaccines, new and important considerations pertinent to our transplant population have arisen. This comprehensive review focuses on the impact of COVID‐19 on kidney transplantation rates, mortality, policy decisions, and the clinical management of transplanted patients infected with COVID‐19.

In those with CKD, hyponatremia was associated with all-cause mortality, cardiovascular, malignancy and non-cardiovascular/non-malignancy-related deaths. Hypernatremia was associated with all-cause and non-cardiovascular/non-malignancy-related deaths. Further studies are needed to elucidate the mechanisms of differences in cause-specific death among CKD patients with hyponatremia and hypernatremia.

In incident HD patients, ferumoxytol showed similar short- to mid-term safety profiles with regard to cardiovascular, infectious and mortality outcomes compared with the more commonly used intravenous iron formulations IS and FG.

With improvements in the care of patients with sickle hemoglobinopathies, sickle cell disease (SCD) has evolved from a disease that was fatal in childhood into one in which most survive past their 5th decade and some into old age. As a result, the renal complications of sickle hemoglobinopathies, which are age dependent, have emerged as a common and serious complication of SCD. Approximately 14 - 18% of mortality in SCD is attributed to chronic kidney disease (CKD), which develops in 1/3 of individuals with SCD and progresses to end-stage renal disease in 4 - 18% of them. Importantly, the presence of CKD increases the risk of the other systemic complications of SCD, with the median survival of SCD estimated at 51 years, declining to 29 years in those with CKD. The obstructive vasculopathy of SCD affects the glomerulus, tubules, and medulla of the kidney. Albuminuria and inability to concentrate the urine precede the onset of renal failure, and, along with other tubular dysfunctions, are early warning signs of sickle cell nephropathy (SCN). This is a review of the historical background SCN, the pathophysiology of the renal lesions, their varied clinical and pathologic manifestations, and available treatment options.
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Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with death in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). We examined the associations between AF and cause-specific mortality in a large CKD population. Methods: We included 62,459 patients with estimated glomerular filtration rate 15–59 mL/min/1.73 m² (6,639 patients with AF and 55,820 without AF) followed in a large health care system. Outcomes included overall and cause-specific deaths (a) cardiovascular; (b) malignancy; and (c) non-cardiovascular/non-malignancy causes. Cox regression models for overall mortality and separate competing risk models for each major cause of death category were used to evaluate their respective associations with AF. Results: During a median follow-up of 4.1 years, 19,094 patients died; cause of death was known for 18,854 patients. After multivariable adjustment (demographics, comorbidities, relevant laboratory data, medication use, and kidney function), AF was associated with 23% (95% CI 18–29%) higher risk of all-cause mortality, 45% (95% CI 31–61%) higher risk of cardiovascular mortality and 13% (95% CI 3–22%) lower risk of malignancy-related mortality. Exclusion of patients with malignancy yielded similar results except for a lack of association between AF and malignancy-related deaths. Results were consistent across various stages of CKD. Conclusions: In a non-dialysis-dependent CKD population, the presence of AF was associated with higher all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. These data suggest that patients with both CKD and AF are at high cardiovascular risk, and thus clinical practice (or trials) should aim at reducing the overall excess cardiovascular mortality (not stroke alone) in patients with AF and CKD.