Diana Rodriguez-Espinosa

Hospital Clínic de Barcelona · Servicio de Nefrología y Trasplante Renal

Background - Anemia is highly prevalent in end-stage chronic kidney disease patients, increasing their risk of receiving blood transfusions during and on the days after a kidney transplant (KTx) surgery. However, there is currently a lack of data that thoroughly describes this phenomenon in this population, the associated risk factors, and how they...

There is a growing interest in the evaluation of tricuspid regurgitation due to its increasing prevalence and detrimental impact on clinical outcomes. Historically, it has been coined the “forgotten” defect in the field of valvular heart disease due to the lack of effective treatments to improve prognosis. However, the development of percutaneous t...

Background Ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) upon transplantation is one of the most impactful events that the kidney graft suffers during its life. Its clinical manifestation in the recipient, Delayed Graft Function (DGF), has indeed serious prognostic consequences. However, the different definitions of DGF are subjected to physicians’ choices and...

Background and Aims Until the advent of the new monitors with sodium modules, the differences between prescribed and actual sodium have been little studied. And most dialysis centers have a fixed sodium prescription. However, the sodium gradient during sessions is one of the key factors in its balance in hemodialysis patients. Predialysis plasma so...

Background and Aims Unlike other high-cardiovascular-risk populations, the efficacy obtained from lipid-lowering therapy remains uncertain in dialysis-dependent chronic kidney disease (DD-CKD) patients. This is probably given to the exclusion in clinical trials of patients with very high LDL levels, their population's heterogeneity, accompanying ca...

Background and Aims The presence of cardiac structural alterations in patients with chronic kidney disease who start renal replacement therapy is frequent. In fact, the real prevalence of heart failure is not well known due to the masking of symptoms by frequent ultrafiltration. Despite this, most deaths in these patients occur due to cardiovascula...

Introduction: Adherence to a low sodium (Na) diet is crucial in patients under hemodialysis, as it improves cardiovascular outcomes and reduces thirst and interdialytic weight gain. Recommended salt intake is lower than 5 g/day. The new 6008 CareSystem monitors incorporate a Na module that offers the advantage of estimating patients' salt intake....

Background A key point in dialysis treatment is the prescription of dialysate sodium (Na). This study aimed to describe the practical implementation of a new automated dialysate Na control biosensor and to assess its tolerance and the beneficial clinical effects of isonatremic dialysis. Methods A prospective study was carried out in 86 patients wh...

Background: Currently, bicarbonate-based dialysate needs a buffer to prevent precipitation of bicarbonate salts with the bivalent cations, and acetate at 3–4 mmol/L is the most used. However, citrate is being postulated as a preferred option because of its association with better clinical results by poorly understood mechanisms. In that sense, this...

Background The age of patients referred for kidney transplantation has increased progressively. However, the precise influence of age on transplant outcomes is controversial. Methods Etrospective study in which graft and recipient survival were assessed in a cohort of ≥75 years old kidney recipients and compared with a contemporary younger one age...

Acetate is widely used as a dialysate buffer to avoid the precipitation of bicarbonate salts. However, even at low concentrations that wouldn’t surpass the metabolic capacity of the Krebs tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, other metabolic routes are activated, leading to undesirable clinical consequences by poorly understood mechanisms. This study aim...

In kidney transplant recipients, there is discordance between the development of cellular and humoral response after vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. We sought to determine the interplay between the 2 arms of adaptive immunity in a 3-dose course of mRNA-1273 100 μg vaccine. Methods: Humoral (IgG/IgM) and cellular (N- and S-ELISpot) responses were...

Patients on peritoneal dialysis (PD) have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and an atherogenic lipid profile generated by exposure to high glucose dialysis solutions. In the general population, the reduction of classic lipids biomarkers is associated with improved clinical outcomes; however, the same results have not been seen in PD...

Background: Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is the most common hereditary cause of end-stage kidney disease. Currently, tolvaptan is the only treatment that has proven to delay disease progression. The most notable side effect of this therapy is drug-induced liver injury; however, recently, there have been two reports of creat...

Background Recently, several pharmaceutical companies have developed new medium cut-off (MCO) dialyzers for expanded hemodialysis (HDx). This study aimed to compare the safety and efficacy of four MCO dialyzers between them and with high-flux hemodialysis (HD) and post-dilution hemodiafiltration (HDF). Methods A prospective study was carried out o...

Refractory congestion is common in acute and chronic heart failure, and it significantly impacts functional class, renal function, hospital admissions, and survival. In this paper, the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in cardiorenal syndrome and the interplay between heart failure and chronic kidney disease are reviewed. Although the physical...

Objective: Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Moreover, chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients exhibit significantly higher incidence and prevalence of cardiovascular events. In this population, used to a high burden of pills, the importance of a polypill-based treatment strategy increases to simplif...

Introduction: The medium cut-off Elisio HX dialyzer by Nipro became commercially available in Europe in 2021, but there are still no reports of in vivo data. This study aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of it compared with previously evaluated hemodialysis (HD), expanded HD (HDx), and postdilution hemodiafiltration (HDF) treatments. Metho...

Background Both metabolic acidosis and alkalosis increase hospitalizations, hemodynamic instability, and mortality of hemodialysis patients. Unfortunately, current practices opt for a one-size-fits-all approach, leaving many patients either acidotic before or alkalotic after dialysis sessions. Therefore, an individualized adjustment of these patien...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is the most common hereditary cause of end-stage kidney disease. Currently, tolvaptan is the only treatment that has proven to delay disease progression. The most notable side-effect of this therapy is drug-induced liver injury; however, recently, there have been two reports o...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Chronic kidney disease (CKD) produces profound changes in lipid metabolism, and these associated lipid disorders, in turn, contribute to the progression of CKD and its cardiovascular complications. Patients on peritoneal dialysis have a more atherogenic lipid profile than non-dialysis-dependent CKD patients or on HD. In the gene...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Seroconversion after a two-dose course of mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in kidney transplant recipients ranges between 30% and 50% in different series. We previously demonstrated that a substantial proportion of patients (35%) without a humoral response, develop a cellular response after the second dose assessed by the ELISpot techn...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a worldwide health issue. Among haemodialysis (HD) patients, many countries opted for a three-dose immunization scheme with mRNA vaccines, as some patients did not produce a sufficient humoral response after the second one, and most developed a rapid decline in antibody levels over the month...

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a worldwide health issue. Among hemodialysis (HD) patients, two-dose immunization schemes with mRNA vaccines have contributed to preventing severe COVID-19 cases; however, some have not produced a sufficient humoral response, and most have developed a rapid decline in antibody levels over the months following v...

Introduction: Given the increased COVID-19 observed in kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) and haemodialysis patients, several studies have tried to establish the efficacy of mRNA vaccines in these populations by evaluating their humoral and cellular responses. However, there is currently no information on clinical protection (deaths and hospitali...

ere, we report a case of a patient with cloudy effluent that was initially diagnosed as bacterial peritonitis. The persistence of a cloudy effluent despite antibiotic therapy led to an extensive peritoneal dialysis (PD) effluent analysis, with the final diagnosis being high-grade B-cell lymphoma. This case will increase the awareness of this rare p...

Here, we report a case of a patient with cloudy effluent that was initially diagnosed as bacterial peritonitis. The persistence of a cloudy effluent despite antibiotic therapy led to an extensive peritoneal dialysis (PD) effluent analysis, with the final diagnosis being high-grade B-cell lymphoma. This case will increase the awareness of this rare...

A 52-year-old man on hemodialysis and immunosuppressive treatment due to a recent kidney graft failure presents with fever, pancytopenia, and left upper quadrant abdominal pain.

Our cohort of 160 patients went from an initial seroconversion proportion of 95.4% to 81.25%. Also, antibody levels continued to drop following the decrease already observed three months after vaccination. Despite this drop, no COVID-19 deaths were observed in vaccinated patients. None of them had a fatal outcome related to COVID-19, unlike the p...

Background. Lipids are molecules that constitute a fundamental part of the plasma. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) produces profound changes in lipid metabolism, and associated lipid disorders, in turn, contribute to the progression of CKD. Patients on peritoneal dialysis (PD) have more atherogenic lipid profiles than non-dialysis-dependent CKD patien...

Primary membranous nephropathy (PMN) is an autoimmune disease limited to the kidney that is characterized by the presence of circulating PLAR2 antibodies in 70% of the cases and usually positivity for PLA2R and IgG4 by immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining. We report the first documented case of PMN (PLA2R positive) in a deceased kidney donor, transp...

Rationale and objective. Patients with kidney failure requiring maintenance dialysis have a higher risk of infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and worse clinical outcomes after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) than the general population. Therefore, immunization against SARS-CoV-2 with effective vaccines...

The development of immune checkpoints from which tumor cells escape has revolutionized oncology in the past decade. However, its use is not indicated for solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients who wish to develop a state of immune tolerance to preserve the graft. The dysregulation of the immune system furthermore poses these patients at a higher r...

Background and Aims The relation between inflammation and cardiovascular disease is well established. Dialysis patients are at a higher risk of cardiovascular death, mostly attributed to cardiovascular disease. This study evaluated the potential benefits of citrate (CD) vs. acetate dialysate (AD) regarding the patients’ inflammatory status. Method...

Background and Aims Dialysate composition is an essential feature of hemodialysis treatment. The use of acetate as the dialysate buffer and its calcium concentration are still topics of debate. Calcium transfer during dialysis sessions is related to short-term (hemodynamic tolerance and arrhythmias) and long-term effects (cardiovascular calcificati...

Background and Aims Early graft failure (EGL) is a devastating complication of kidney transplantation. Patients with EGL have an increased risk of mortality of up to twelve times compared to patients who received grafts that survive beyond 30 days. Moreover, they may have become sensitized to antigens from the failed graft and that human leukocyte...

Introduction Early graft loss is a devastating kidney transplant complication associated with high mortality and an increased risk of sensitization to antigens from the failed graft. Moreover, if rapid re-transplantation were to occur, given that the human leukocyte antigen antibodies identification may not be reliable until several weeks after tra...

The Clearum dialyzer, built by Medtronic, became commercially available in several European countries in 2020 but there are still no reports of in vivo data. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and risk of hypoalbuminemia of this dialyzer compared with previously evaluated hemodialysis (HD), expanded hemodialysis (HDx) and postdiluti...

Toray has created a new generation of dialyzers, the polysulphone (TS) UL series, and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) NF‐U series, which offer enhanced efficacy over the previous TS‐S series and NF‐H series. The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of these dialyzer series versus contrasted expanded hemodialysis (HDx) and postdil...

A patient with a previously failed kidney transplant (on low-dose immunosuppressors), and currently on thrice-weekly in-center hemodialysis, had an initial asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection with a transient positive IgG presence on immunoassays, was re-infected three months later presenting a more severe disease and ultimately fatal clinical outcom...

The following paper reports the case of a woman on in-center hemodialysis through an arteriovenous graft, who attended with an acute vascular access thrombosis. Post percutaneous thrombectomy, the patient presented a rare case of self-limited acute hepatitis secondary to the revascularization procedure. We explain the probable trigger for this comp...

Parvovirus B19 (PB19) is a common infection among solid transplant recipients. Usually, it is asymptomatic, but sometimes it can become a real therapeutic challenge. We report a case of a kidney transplant recipient with relapsing pure red cell aplasia due to PB19 infection. Our patient was initially managed with standard treatment consisting of in...

Introduction: COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease that has easily spread worldwide. Outpatient maintenance hemodialysis seems to entail an increased risk of contagion, and previous reports inform of increased mortality among this population. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed clinical and laboratory parameters, outcomes, and management onc...

Background and Aims Anti-glomerular basement membrane (anti-GBM) disease is an aggressive and rare glomerulopathy characterized by rapidly progressive loss of kidney function, leading to end stage kidney disease (ESKD) in a significant amount of cases. The main objective of our study was to determine whether anti-GBM titer correlated with the rate...

Background: Metabolic acidosis is a common problem in haemodialysis patients, but acidosis overcorrection has been associated with higher mortality. There is no clear definition of the optimal serum bicarbonate target or dialysate bicarbonate. This study analysed the impact of reducing dialysate bicarbonate from 35 to 32 mEq/L on plasma bicarbonate...

Since the first cases of Coronavirus Disease 2019(COVID‐19) were identified on December 12th, 2019, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) infection has dramatically spread worldwide becoming a pandemic with devastating consequences1. This exponential increase in COVID‐19 cases also includes vulnerable populations such as...

COVID‐19 is novel infectious disease with an evolving understanding of its epidemiology and clinical manifestations. Immunocompromised patients often present atypical presentations of viral diseases. Herein we report a case of a COVID‐19 infection in a solid organ transplant recipient, in which the first clinical symptoms were of gastrointestinal v...

Blood flow (Qb) is one of the dialysis parameters most strongly influencing the performance of dialysis modalities. However, few studies have compared different dialysis modalities in patients with low Qb. We conducted a prospective, single-center study in 21 patients. Each patient underwent four dialysis sessions with routine dialysis parameters:...