Compliance mismatch, thrombosis, and long culture times in vitro remain important challenges to the clinical implementation of a tissue-engineered small-diameter blood vessel (SDBV). To address these issues, we are developing an implantable elastomeric and biodegradable biphasic tubular scaffold. The scaffold design uses connected nonporous and porous phases as a basis to mimic, respectively, t...

BACKGROUND The development of interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy is a common complication after kidney transplantation and is associated with reduced long-term outcome. The hallmark of tubulointerstitial fibrosis is an increase in extracellular matrix resulting from exaggerated activation of fibroblasts/myofibroblasts, and tubular atrophy is characterized by a decrease in tubular diamete...

OBJECTIVE We investigated whether degree of immunohistochemically evident endothelin (ET) expression in early post-transplant biopsy specimens could predict long-term allograft function in living-related renal transplantation. METHODS Allograft biopsy specimens obtained from 40 patients with living-related transplants were studied. Cases with episodes of acute rejection or calcineurin inhibit...

1. Amino acids have been used to test renal reserve filtration capacity. Previous studies suggest that amino acids increase glomerular filtration rate (GFR) by reducing distal tubular flow and tubuloglomerular feedback activity. 2. Glomerular function and the renal tubular handling of sodium during infusion of amino acids was studied in 12 normal volunteers. 3. Clearance of sodium (CNa) was unc...