Postrenal Failure due to Urinary Stones Associated with Acute Viral Gastroenteritis: Three Case Reports

Acute gastroenteritis with viral infection in infants causes severe diarrhea and often results in acute renal failure due to severe dehydration. However, a viral infection, particularly rotavirus, rarely induces postrenal failure due to bilateral stones in infants. Herein, we report three cases of postrenal failure in infants due to bilateral ureteral stones induced by acute gastroenteritis with rotavirus. Following immediately nephrostomy, chemical dissolution therapy succeeded to treat postrenal failure. Immediate nephrostomy for the release of upper urinary tract obstruction combined with urinary alkalization as a chemical dissolution therapy should be considered in such cases.

Steroid-Resistant Kidney Transplant Rejection: Diagnosis and Treatment

Decreases in transplant function may be attributable to a variety of conditions, including prerenal and postrenal failure, cyclosporin A (CsA) toxicity, polyoma nephritis, recurrent glomerulonephritis, and rejection. The diagnosis of rejection should therefore be made on the basis of a transplant biopsy of adequate size, before the initiation of any therapy. Pulse steroid treatment (three to five 0.25- to 1.0-g pulses of methylprednisolone, administered intravenously) is the usual first-line therapy and has a 60 to 70% success rate, although orally administered prednisone (0.25 g) may be just as efficacious. Even if reverted, any rejection should trigger an at least temporary increase in basal immunosuppression, consisting of an increase in CsA or tacrolimus target levels, the addition of steroids or an increase in their dosage, the addition of mycophenolate mofetil, or a switch from CsA to tacrolimus. The addition of rapamycin or its RAD derivative may fulfill the same purpose. Steroid resistance should not be assumed before the fifth day of pulse steroid treatment, although histologic features of vascular rejection may indicate the need for more aggressive treatment earlier. Steroid-resistant rejection is traditionally treated with poly- or monoclonal antilymphocytic antibodies, with success rates of 60 to 70%. Their potential benefit must be carefully balanced against the risks of infection and lymphoma. More recently, mycophenolate mofetil has been successfully used to treat steroid-resistant rejection, but only of the interstitial (cellular) type. Switching from CsA to tacrolimus for treating recurrent or antibody-resistant rejection is successful in approximately 60% of cases. Plasmapheresis and intravenously administered Ig have been used in some desperate cases, with surprising success. Because none of the available drugs has a significantly better profile of therapeutic versus adverse effects, the possible benefits of continued rejection therapy must be continuously balanced with the potential for serious, sometimes fatal, side effects.

Serious Renal Disease in Egypt

We studied serious renal disease in Egypt by registering all 155 patients coming to the nephrology service at the University of Cairo during a period of 62 days in 1993. The patients presented with severe uremic symptoms. Admission creatinine and urea levels were high, 804 μmol/l and 64 mmol/l. Fifteen percent of the patients died; 115 underwent dialysis. Sixty patients presented with chronic renal failure; 53 with acute renal failure, but 24 of these were later found to have end-stage renal failure. Of 29 patients with true acute renal failure, 11 (38%) had pre-renal failure and 7 (24%) postrenal failure. Twenty-one patients were followed up after transplantation and chronic dialysis, another 17 had nephrotic syndrome, 3 hypertension, and one had asymptomatic urinary abnormalities. The most common specific etiology for chronic end-stage renal failure was diabetes mellitus type II in the older patients; second most common was Schistosoma in the younger ones. Most diabetic patients came from the city. All but one Schistosoma patient came from rural Egypt. In the 22 patients who underwent renal biopsy the most common diagnosis was mesangio capillary glomerulonephritis. The prevalence of acute renal failure, particularly iatrogenic-toxic, is increasing