Acute kidney injury after in-hospital cardiac arrest in a predominant internal medicine and cardiology patient population: incidence, risk factors, and impact on survival.

INTRODUCTION: Prognosis of survivors from cardiac arrest is generally poor. Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common finding in these patients. In general, AKI is well characterized as a marker of adverse outcome. In-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) represents a special subset of cardiac arrest scenarios with differential predisposing factors and courses after the event, compared to out-of-hospital resuscitations. Data about AKI in survivors after in-hospital cardiac arrest are scarce. METHODS: In this study, we retrospectively analyzed patients after IHCA for incidence and risk factors of AKI and its prognostic impact on mortality. For inclusion in the analysis, patients had to survive at least 48 h after IHCA. RESULTS: A total of 238 IHCA events with successful resuscitation and survival beyond 48 h after the initial event were recorded. Of those, 89.9% were patients of internal medicine, and 10.1% of patients from surgery, neurology or other departments. In 120/238 patients (50.4%), AKI was diagnosed. In 28 patients (23.3%), transient or permanent renal replacement therapy had to be initiated. Male gender, preexisting chronic kidney disease and a non-shockable first ECG rhythm during resuscitation were significantly associated with a higher incidence of AKI in IHCA-survivors. In-hospital mortality in survivors from IHCA without AKI was 29.7%, and 60.8% in patients after IHCA who developed AKI (p < 0.01 between groups).By multivariate analysis, AKI after IHCA persisted as an independent predictor of in-hospital mortality (HR 3.7 (95% CI 2.14-6.33, p ≤ 0.01)). CONCLUSION: In this cohort of survivors from IHCA, AKI is a frequent finding, with adverse impact on outcome. Therefore, therapeutic strategies to prevent AKI in post-IHCA patients are warranted.

Tumor cell-based vaccination in renal cell carcinoma: rationale. approaches, and recent clinical development.

Since there is some evidence for spontaneous immunity against renal cell carcinoma, vaccination strategies are often used in patients with this tumor type, both in the adjuvant and the metastatic setting. Therefore, therapeutic strategies aim at augmenting anti-tumor immunity, but tumor-specific antigens suitable for vaccination purposes in renal cell carcinoma still remain to be identified. Early approaches used whole tumor cells or cell lysates with or without non-specific adjuvants like BCG. Studies investigating tumor cell vaccines have demonstrated immunological responses following vaccination, like positive cutaneous delayed hypersensitivity reactions indicating biological acitivity of tumor cell vaccines, and clinical responses have been observed as well. However, no clinical benefit has been demonstrated in randomized phase III trials. In recent years, efforts to develop more potent vaccines resulted in more sophisticated methods of tumor vaccination: The insertion of "neo-antigens" to enhance immunogenicity, the insertion of T-cell co-stimulatory molecules to enhance anti-tumor T-cell activation and the local production of cytokines to enhance T-cell function or the migration of antigen-presenting cells. Tumor cells have been genetically modified to express and produce cytokines, which in turn enhance the immunogenicity of the vaccine. The important role of dendritic cells has been recognized and tumor antigen-pulsed dendritic cells have been proposed. Hybrid cell vaccines are another promising approach. Safety and some effectiveness of these vaccines were demonstrated in phase I and II trials. However, randomized phase III trials are mandatory to confirm the usefulness of vaccination strategies. This review will describe the principals of tumor vaccination and, in a second part, focus on clinical studies of tumor vaccination in patients with renal cell carcinoma.