Objective: Identify and analyze existing evidence regarding the benefits of spirituality and / or religiosity in patients with Chronic Kidney Disease. Method: Integrative review carried out through consultation of databases: Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences, Scientific Electronic Library Online, US National Library of Medicine and Scopus. The following descriptors were used: chronic kidney disease, spirituality and religion. Primary articles published by December 2017 were included. Results: Twenty-six articles were selected, from which four thematic categories emerged: benefits as a modality of coping, perception of quality of life, mental health and improvement of renal function after transplantation. Conclusion: Benefits included those related to situational coping modalities, such as the strengthening of hope, social support and coping with pain; those related to mental health, such as the lower risk of suicide and fewer depressive symptoms; improvement in the perception of quality of life and in renal function after transplantation.

This analysis, using data from the Brazilian kidney transplant (KT) COVID-19 study, seeks to develop a prediction score to assist in COVID-19 risk stratification in KT recipients. In this study, 1379 patients (35 sites) were enrolled, and a machine learning approach was used to fit models in a derivation cohort. A reduced Elastic Net model was selected, and the accuracy to predict the 28-day fatality after the COVID-19 diagnosis, assessed by the area under the ROC curve (AUC-ROC), was confirmed in a validation cohort. The better calibration values were used to build the applicable ImAgeS score. The 28-day fatality rate was 17% (n = 235), which was associated with increasing age, hypertension and cardiovascular disease, higher body mass index, dyspnea, and use of mycophenolate acid or azathioprine. Higher kidney graft function, longer time of symptoms until COVID-19 diagnosis, presence of anosmia or coryza, and use of mTOR inhibitor were associated with reduced risk of death. The coefficients of the best model were used to build the predictive score, which achieved an AUC-ROC of 0.767 (95% CI 0.698–0.834) in the validation cohort. In conclusion, the easily applicable predictive model could assist health care practitioners in identifying non-hospitalized kidney transplant patients that may require more intensive monitoring. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04494776.

The treatment of choice for Atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (aHUS) is the monoclonal antibody eculizumab. The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of eculizumab in a cohort of kidney transplant patients suffering from aHUS. Description of the prospective cohort of all the patients primarily treated with eculizumab after transplantation and divided into the therapeutic (onset of aHUS after transplantation) and prophylactic use (patients with previous diagnosis of aHUS undergoing kidney transplantation). Seven cases were outlined: five of therapeutic use and two, prophylactic. From the five cases of therapeutic use, there was improvement of the thrombotic microangiopathy in the 48 hours following the start of the drug and no patient experienced relapse during an average follow-up of 21 months in the continuous use of eculizumab (minimum of 6 and maximum of 42 months). One patient died at 6 months, due to Aspergillus infection. From the two cases of prophylactic use, one patient experienced relapsed thrombotic microangiopathy after 4 months and another patient remained asymptomatic after 16 months of follow-up, both on chronic treatment. The therapeutic use of eculizumab showed to be effective, with improvement of the microangiopathy parameters and persisting up to the end of the follow-up, without relapses. The additional risk of immunosuppression, leading to opportunistic infections, was well tolerated. The prophylactic use showed to be effective and safe; however, the doses and intervals should be individualized in order to avoid relapsed microangiopathy, especially in patients with factor H mutation.