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Renal biopsy is an important diagnostic tool, though invasive and carries risks involved with sedation. The authors wanted to compare suspect histopathological diagnosis with final diagnosis and find out impact of biopsy findings on treatment. They retrospectively analyzed 108 patients. Details of patients, diagnosis, treatment and complications due to kidney biopsy were documented. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 20.0 (IBM, NY). Indications of 108 children (69 boys, 39 girls) undergoing renal biopsy were steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome (35.1%), steroid-dependent nephrotic syndrome requiring calcineurin inhibitors (CNI) (12%), nephrotic range proteinuria with atypical features (16.7%), lupus nephritis (13%), and acute kidney injury (AKI) stage 3 (17.6%). Suspect and histopathological diagnoses were similar in 53% cases with agreement factor of 0.462. Treatment changed in 28.7%. Renal biopsy made substantial impact in patients with nephrotic range proteinuria with atypical features (55.6%) and AKI stage 3 (52.6%). One (0.9%) had developed gross hematuria, which resolved spontaneously., (© 2021. Dr. K C Chaudhuri Foundation.)

Objective: To assess the safety of centrifugal therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE) in pediatric patients., Methods: The authors did a retrospective analysis of all TPE procedures performed in pediatric patients over a period of 19 y (2001-2019). Procedures were done on different apheretic devices, daily or on alternate days depending on the clinical condition of the patient. Adverse events during the procedure were noted and analyzed., Results: A total of 672 TPE (with mean of 6.77 ± 4.85) procedures were performed for 99 pediatric patients with different indications like hematological (n = 68), renal (n = 12), neurology (n = 18) and hepatology (n = 1). The mean age was 7.00 ± 3.11 y and weight was 20.72 ± 9.17 kg. Adverse events (AEs) were observed during 34 (5%) procedures, most common were allergic reactions to replacement fluid (2.24%) followed by hypotension (1.04%), symptomatic hypocalcemia (1.04%), line occlusion (0.59%), and febrile non hemolytic transfusion reaction (0.41%). A significant correlation of AEs was observed with weight (p = 0.045), total blood volume of the patient (p = 0.04), increasing number of procedures (p = 0.000) and replacement fluid [Fresh frozen plasma (FFP)] (p = 0.04). All AEs were managed as per departmental standard operating procedures (SOPs) completing procedures successfully except one which was abandoned. No mortality was observed during the procedures., Conclusion: TPE is a safe therapeutic modality in pediatric patients when performed under expert technical supervision with proper SOPs in place., (© 2021. Dr. K C Chaudhuri Foundation.)