Contrast-enhanced ultrasound in peritoneal dialysis: when and how to perform it.

In the field of peritoneal dialysis contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) is a new add-on examination to B-mode ultrasound, but until recently it has never been systematically studied. Based on the experience of the Project Group "Integrated Imaging and Interventional Nephrology" of the Italian Society of Nephrology, CEUS is helpful for evaluating catheter malfunction, peritoneal-pleural communication, leakage, and herniation, and in particular it facilitates dynamic functional imaging of the catheter and its complications. The use of CEUS in peritoneal dialysis is simple, repeatable, safe, radiation-free, and appears to be less time-consuming and more cost-effective than other radiological imaging techniques such as peritoneography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance or peritoneal scintigraphy.

PGNMID and anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody: a therapeutic challenge.

Monoclonal gammopathy of renal significance (MGRS) designates disorders induced by a monoclonal protein secreted by plasma cells or B-cell clones in patients who do not meet the diagnostic criteria for multiple myeloma or other B-cell malignancies. Proliferative glomerulonephritis with monoclonal immunoglobulin deposits (PGNMID) is a form MGRS. Until now, no guidelines to decide the best therapeutic approach to manage PGNMID exist, and most patients progress to End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) without therapy. Recently, daratumumab has showed an acceptable improvement in proteinuria and renal function in patients with PGNMID. We report the clinical outcome and the histological renal evolution and treatment complication of our patient, who was initially treated with a combination regimen including bortezomib, dexamethasone, and cyclophosphamide and then with anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody-based regimen.

The Underrated Role of Ultrasound in Peritoneal Dialysis.

Ultrasound is very effective in performing procedures and assessment of complications in peritoneal dialysis. The ultrasound examination can be applied for preoperative assessment, during the peritoneal catheter placement, for the detection and monitoring of infection, as well as for the evaluation of the catheter malfunction. Despite being not only a cost- and time-saving technique but also a bedside procedure, ultrasonography remains an underrated clinical tool in the field of peritoneal dialysis. This publication wants to explain and reinforce the clinical utility of US in PD and to expand the diagnostic equipment for the clinician.

[Acute renal failure secondary to DRESS syndrome].

We report here the case of a 63-year-old man, diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, who presented fever, weakness, diarrhea, chest, limbs and face erythema 20 days after starting of therapy with salazopyrin; these symptoms only partially and temporarily subsided after early drug withdrawal. The subsequent intake of mesalazine during acute colitis, after 48 hours, determined a sever relapse characterized by high fever, general malaise, diffuse morbilliform rash on the trunk, face and limbs with visceral involvement (acute renal and hepatic injury). At this time the diagnosis of "Drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms", or DRESS, was done according to "Regiscar" criteria. Mesalazine was therefore suspended and steroid therapy begun, inducing a slow but complete remission within two months.

Pancreatitis Is a Silent Killer in Peritoneal Dialysis With Difficult Diagnostic Approach.

Until 2018, 236 cases of acute pancreatitis have been reported in patients who underwent peritoneal dialysis. Here, we presented a patient with double renal transplantation with chronic renal failure, under renal replacement therapy by peritoneal dialysis, who developed acute pancreatitis with abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, leukocytosis with neutrophil left shift which is complicated by pancreatic pseudocyst, candida peritonitis, fungal sepsis, overlapping of Acinetobacter baumannii sepsis, and pneumonitis. After the percutaneous cystogastrostomy drainage of pancreatic pseudocyst, changes from peritoneal dialysis to hemodialysis, various thoracentesis, and polyantibiotics therapy, the resolution of the sepsis state was seen. The particular aspect of our case is the various comorbidity risks, severe pancreatitis associated with candida and A baumannii sepsis, and treatment strategy that lead to heal this kind of the high mortality rate condition.