Current Status and Treatment Strategies of Hemodialysis-Associated Pruritus.

BACKGROUND: Hemodialysis-associated pruritus (HAP) is often treatment-resistant, and is a serious comorbidity that adversely affects prognosis and reduces patient quality of life through sleep disruption and depression. SUMMARY: HAP can arise from a combination of several causes; accordingly, it is often resistant to treatment. HAP patients need the specific causes of their itching to be identified, with a comprehensive approach to treatment. We have implemented our own therapeutic algorithm, which covers cause specification, for HAP since June 2009. This resulted in a significantly decreased proportion of patients with itching (2016 vs. 2009: 77.3 vs. 96.6%), accompanied by a significant decrease in median visual analogue scale itching score (2016 vs. 2009: 21.0 vs. 53.0 mm), for patients treated for itching at our facility in October 2016. Key Messages: HAP patients need the causes of their itching to be specified, and to be treated with a comprehensive approach. Alleviation of itching is anticipated to improve patient quality of life and prognosis.

Questionnaire survey and serum phosphorus levels in maintenance hemodialysis patients switching lanthanum carbonate formulation from chewable tablets to granules.

We conducted a questionnaire survey of 79 maintenance hemodialysis patients switching lanthanum carbonate (LC) formulation from chewable tablets to granules, to investigate the compliance and patient preferences of these two formulations. For the number of times chewed when taking chewable tablets, the ratio of patients who responded 10 times or more was 54.4%, who responded four to nine times was 24.1% and who responded three times or less was 8.9%. Thirty-seven patients (46.8%) responded "Granules are easier to take", 22 patients (27.8%) responded "Chewable tablets are easier to take", and 20 patients (25.3%) responded "No difference between formulations." Changes in serum phosphorus (P) levels were also measured for 4 weeks after switching formulation, but no significant differences were observed before and after switching. We think that these questionnaire survey results show the compliance status and the patient needs for LC in the clinical practices.

Superconductivity in carrier-doped silicon carbide.

We report growth and characterization of heavily boron-doped 3C-SiC and 6H-SiC and Al-doped 3C-SiC. Both 3C-SiC:B and 6H-SiC:B reveal type-I superconductivity with a critical temperature Tc=1.5 K. On the other hand, Al-doped 3C-SiC (3C-SiC:Al) shows type-II superconductivity with Tc=1.4 K. Both SiC:Al and SiC:B exhibit zero resistivity and diamagnetic susceptibility below Tc with effective hole-carrier concentration n higher than 1020 cm-3. We interpret the different superconducting behavior in carrier-doped p-type semiconductors SiC:Al, SiC:B, Si:B and C:B in terms of the different ionization energies of their acceptors.