Issue 2, 2009July 9, 2009 Welcome to the second issue of Kidney and Blood Pressure Research Digest (KBPR Digest). As we did in the first issue, we would like to draw your attention to articles of outstanding importance in the field of nephrology and hypertension. We therefore present short summaries of these articles to the scientific community in the form of KBPR Digest. KBPR Digest provides readers from all over the world with a free and concise overview on interesting topics which are part of the current issue of Kidney and Blood Pressure Research. We hope that you are attracted by this new format and that you will be inspired to get to know more about the details of the articles which are discussed below. Professor Thomas Quaschning, MD, PHD In behalf of the Editorial Board of Kidney and Blood Pressure Research mail@thomas-quaschning.de   Digest of issue 3/2009 Issue 3/2009 of Kidney and Blood Pressure Research covers a wide spectrum of clinical and preclinical topics. It contains a prospective study on predictors of high blood pressure in a clinical setting in normotensive children as well as an evaluation of cardiovascular calcification in non-diabetic Caucasian hemodialysis patients. A third article investigates the treatment of mesangioproliferative glomerulonephritis in rats with polyclonal immunoglobulin G. Increasing attention is being paid to the issue of hypertension in children, particularly because it is likely that its prevalence will increase with the obesity epidemic. The transient rise in blood pressure that occurs during consultations is usually referred to as white-coat effect. A relatively benign cardiovascular risk was formerly attributed to white-coat hypertension in the adult population. However, with longer-term follow-up, there have been reports of higher cardiovascular disease event rates that are similar to those seen in patients with sustained hypertension. Bohlke and coworkers (Kidney Blood Press Res 2009;32:205-209) assessed the predictors of a higher blood pressure in a prospective cohort of normotensive children recruited in an outpatient pediatric clinical setting in Southern Brazil. Investigating 443 children, 3–12 years of age, they demonstrated an association between the systolic blood pressure percentile during the clinical consultation and both BMI and birth weight, respectively. Weight excess, low birth weight and younger age were associated with a higher blood pressure. The remarkable finding of this study is the inverse relationship between birth weight and white-coat effect in children. Although epidemiological evidence accumulated over the past two decades have revealed a significant association between low birth weight and subsequent adult hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, the present data for the first time demonstrate that the tendency to white-coat hypertension is determined, at least to some extent, before birth. Dialysis patients exhibit a dramatically increased overall as well as cardiovascular mortality when compared with the normal population. Cardiovascular calcifications are important predictors of mortality in end-stage renal disease patients on renal replacement therapy. Traditional risk factors can only partly explain the increased risk for the development of cardiovascular calcifications. Many factors have been investigated and proposed as risk factors for the accelerated cardiovascular calcifications in patients with chronic kidney disease. In the present cross-sectional BASCH study (Belgrade Aachen study on cardiovascular calcification in hemodialysis patients; Kidney Blood Press Res 2009;32:161-168), the authors applied semiquantitative calcification scores such as the Adragao score and a novel extended composite score to investigate risk factors for cardiovascular calcifications in a cohort of 188 non-diabetic Caucasian hemodialysis patients. In this cohort, age, male gender, dialysis vintage, smoking, calcium-phosphate product and high-sensitivity CRP were independent risk factors for cardiovascular calcifications. In addition to known risk factors, reduced Kt/V was independently associated with cardiovascular calcifications. Future studies should focus on reducing calcium-phosphate product and increasing dialysis efficiency to determine whether this can reduce cardiovascular calcifications and improve survival. The authors nicely demonstrated that widely available and cost-effective methods such as the Adragao and composite calcification scores can be used to assess risk factors for cardiovascular calcifications and are probably useful tools to identify patients at increased risk of mortality. Pooled human plasma immunoglobulin applied as intravenous immunoglobulin is used in the treatment of various types of glomerulonephritis, mostly those resistant to conventional therapy. The precise mechanism of immunoglobulin action was elusive until recently when, in a mouse model of arthritis, treatment with sialylated Fc parts of the IgG molecules reproduced the effects of intravenous immunoglobulin administration. The role of polyvalent IgG treatment during the course of experimental progressive mesangioproliferative nephritis is not yet known but may provide insight into the relevance of this treatment option. Boor and Kunter (Kidney Blood Press Res 2009;32:169-174), University of Aachen, evaluated the effect of immunoglobulin application in progressive mesangioproliferative nephritis, which was induced in male Wistar rats by uninephrectomy and anti-Thy1.1 antibody injection. During the experiment, IgG treatment prevented weight loss and had a beneficial effect on the rise in serum creatinine and the decline of creatinine clearance. At sacrifice, a significantly lower number of IgG-treated rats had tripled their creatinine or halved their creatinine clearance, and the IgG-treated group exhibited reduced mortality due to renal failure. These data strongly support the potential renoprotective effects of immunoglobulin treatment in mesangioproliferative nephritis. It is surprising that even in the 21st century, obviously valuable treatment options for glomerulonephritis - such as immunoglobulin application - are poorly understood and therefore barely used. The increase of research activities in this field may finally be rewarding for numerous patients.   Congress Calendar Joint Meeting of the Brazilian Society of Hypertension and the Inter-American Society of Hypertension Belo Horizonte, August 5-8, 2009 Artery 9 Cambridge, September 9-12, 2009 63rd High Blood Pressure Research Conference 2009 Chicago, Ill., September 23-26, 2009 Japanese Society of Hypertension Annual Meeting Otsu, October 1-2, 2009 WCH 2009 World Hypertesion Congress Beijing, October 29-November 1, 2009 In conjunction with The 11th International Symposium on Hypertension and Related Diseases ASN Renal Week 2009 San Diego, Calif., October 27-November 1, 2009 2nd International Conference on Fixed Combination in the Treatment of Hypertension, Dyslipidemia and Diabetes Mellitus Valencia, September 10-12, 2009 9th Genoa Meeting on Hypertension, Diabetes and Renal Diseases Genoa, February 25-27, 2010 ESH 2010 20th European Meeting on Hypertension Oslo, June 18-22, 2010 23rd Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Hypertension Vancouver, September 26-30, 2010   © S. 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