Even mild cases of acute kidney injury after liver transplantation are associated with lower survival for both the patient and the graft. With more severe kidney injury, outcomes are even worse. These findings are in the May issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons. The article is also available online at Wiley Interscience.

The drug rituximab causes considerable kidney injury healing in patients with membranous nephropathy, a common form of kidney disease, according to a study appearing in the November 2008 issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN).

No significant difference in death rates or other outcomes was found between a group of patients with acute kidney injury that received intensive dialysis and another group that received a more standard regimen of dialysis, according to a joint Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) study published in the June issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

For patients with acute kidney injury (AKI), an external device containing human kidney cells promotes recovery of the injured kidneys and significantly reduces the risk of death, according to a preliminary clinical study published in the May Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

For critically ill patients, intensive insulin therapy (IIT) to keep blood sugar (glucose) at normal levels reduces the risk of acute kidney injury, reports a study in the March Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Clinicians currently lack advance warning of acute kidney injury (AKI) for patients where kidney injury timing is unknown. Now paediatric research published in the open access journal, Critical Care, has identified a potential biomarker to predict AKI earlier than current tests, opening a vital window for prevention of this life-threatening condition.