Renal diseases shall be diagnosed earlier and treated more successfully in the future. Towards this aim, researchers from nine European countries, coordinated by the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Germany, have been working for the past four-and-a half years to create a three-dimensional virtual "Kidney Atlas".

Suffering from end-stage renal disease (ESRD), a growing number of patients at the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM), have become the beneficiaries of a North American breakthrough: high efficacy hemodiafiltration (HDF).

Scientists at Johns Hopkins schools of Public Health and Medicine have, for the first time, identified variants in the gene MYH9 that are associated with increased risk for non-diabetic end stage renal disease (ESRD,) which is the near-loss of kidney function leading to either dialysis of transplant.

Radiologists need to look beyond the renal arteries when doing renal MR angiography (MRA), a study conducted at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN suggests. The study found that 98% of patients who underwent renal MRA had one or more additional vascular or nonvascular findings.

Gender influences the prevalence and progression rate of many renal diseases, such as polycystic kidney disease (PKD). The physiology behind gender differences and renal disease is still uncertain, but the distinct characteristics of male and female kidney size, along with diet and the presence of hypertension, have all been thought to play a part.

Sophia Antipolis, France: The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the European Society of Hypertension (ESH) have released new Guidelines on the management of Arterial Hypertension, which can be found in the European Heart Journal, the official journal of the ESC and Europe's leading cardiology journal.