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Background: Although several renal biopsy registry reports have been published worldwide, there are no data on primary glomerular disease trends in Turkey., Methods: Three thousand eight-hundred fifty-eight native kidney biopsy records were assessed in the Turkish Society of Nephrology Primary Glomerulopathy Working Group (TSN-GOLD) Registry. Secondary disease and transplant biopsies were not recorded in the registry. These records were divided into four periods, before 2009, 2009 to 2013, 2013-2017, and 2017-current., Results: A total of 3858 patients (43.6% female, 6.8% elderly) were examined. Nephrotic syndrome was the most common biopsy indication in all periods (58.6%, 53%, 44.1%, 51.6%, respectively). In the whole cohort, IgA nephropathy (IgAN) (25.7%) was the most common PGN with male predominance (62.7%), and IgAN frequency steadily increased through the periods (× 2 = 198, p < 0.001). MGN was the most common nephropathy in the elderly (> 65 years), and there was no trend in this age group. An increasing trend was seen in the frequency of overweight patients (× 2 = 37, p < 0.0001). Although the biopsy rate performed with interventional radiology gradually increased, the mean glomeruli count in the samples did not change over the periods., Conclusions: In Turkey, IgAN is the most common primary glomerulonephritis, and the frequency of this is increasing., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Cancer is one of the most common causes of death all over the World (Rahib et al. in Cancer Res 74(11):2913-2921, 2014; Silbermann et al. in Ann Oncol 23(Suppl 3):iii15-iii28, 2012). It is crucial to diagnose this disease early by effective screening methods and also it is very important to acknowledge the community on various aspects of this disease such as the treatment methods and palliative care. Not only the oncologists but every medical doctor should be educated well in dealing with cancer patients. Previous studies suggested various opinions on the level of oncology education in medical schools (Pavlidis et al. in Ann Oncol 16(5):840-841, 2005). In this study, the perspectives of medical students on cancer, its treatment, palliative care, and the oncologists were analyzed in relation to their educational status. A multicenter survey analysis was performed on a total of 4224 medical school students that accepted to enter this study in Turkey. After the questions about the demographical characteristics of the students, their perspectives on the definition, diagnosis, screening, and treatment methods of cancer and their way of understanding metastatic disease as well as palliative care were analyzed. The questionnaire includes questions with answers and a scoring system of Likert type 5 (absolutely disagree = 1, completely agree = 5). In the last part of the questionnaire, there were some words to detect what the words "cancer" and "oncologist" meant for the students. The participant students were analyzed in two study groups; "group 1" (n = 1.255) were phases I and II students that had never attended an oncology lesson, and "group 2" (n = 2.969) were phases III to VI students that had attended oncology lessons in the medical school. SPSS v17 was used for the database and statistical analyses. A value of p < 0.05 was noted as statistically significant. Group 1 defined cancer as a contagious disease (p = 0.00025), they believed that early diagnosis was never possible (p = 0.042), all people with a diagnosis of cancer would certainly die (p = 0.044), and chemotherapy was not successful in a metastatic disease (p = 0.003) as compared to group 2. The rate of the students that believed gastric cancer screening was a part of the national screening policy was significantly more in group 1 than in group 2 (p = 0.00014). Group 2 had a higher anxiety level for themselves or their family members to become a cancer patient. Most of the students in both groups defined medical oncologists as warriors (57% in group 1 and 40% in group 2; p = 0.097), and cancer was reminding them of "death" (54% in group 1 and 48% in group 2; p = 0.102). This study suggested that oncology education was useful for the students' understanding of cancer and related issues; however, the level of oncology education should be improved in medical schools in Turkey. This would be helpful for medical doctors to cope with many aspects of cancer as a major health care problem in this country.

Purpose: Renal infarction is a clinical condition which is caused by renal artery occlusion and leads to permanent renal parenchymal damage. In the literature, there are generally case reports on this subject, and few studies that include a large group of patients. Therefore, we aimed to present the data of a large group of patients who were diagnosed with acute renal infarction in our country in this retrospective study., Methods: The data of patients who were diagnosed with acute renal infarction according to clinical and radiological findings in Turkey in the last 3 years were examined. For this purpose, we contacted with more than 40 centers in 7 regions and obtained support from clinically responsible persons. Demographic data of patients, laboratory data at the time of diagnosis, tests performed for etiologic evaluation, given medications, and patients' clinical status during follow-up were obtained from databases and statistical analysis was performed., Results: One-hundred and twenty-one patients were included in the study. The mean age was 53 ± 1.4 (19-91) years. Seventy-one (58.7%) patients were male, 18 (14.9%) had diabetes, 53 (43.8%) had hypertension, 36 (30%) had atrial fibrillation (AF), and 6 had a history of lupus + antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). Forty-five patients had right renal infarction, 50 patients had left renal infarction, and 26 (21.5%) patients had bilateral renal infarction. The examinations for the ethiologies revealed that, 36 patients had thromboemboli due to atrial fibrillation, 10 patients had genetic anomalies leading to thrombosis, 9 patients had trauma, 6 patients had lupus + APS, 2 patients had hematologic diseases, and 1 patient had a substance abuse problem. Fifty-seven (57%) patients had unknown. The mean follow-up period was 14 ± 2 months. The mean creatinine and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) values at 3 months were found to be 1.65 ± 0.16 mg/dl and 62 ± 3 ml/min, respectively. The final mean creatinine and GFR values were found to be 1.69 ± 0.16 mg/dl and 62 ± 3 ml/min, respectively., Conclusions: Our study is the second largest series published on renal infarction in the literature. More detailed studies are needed to determine the etiological causes of acute renal infarction occurring in patients.

Background: The aim of the study is a comparison of the expression of cytoskeletal proteins, alpha smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA), vimentin, and desmin in fetal, normal kidney and proliferative (diffuse proliferative and membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis) and nonproliferative (membranous glomerulonephritis) glomerulonephritis., Methods: We have studied the expression of cytoskeletal proteins (alpha-SMA, vimentin, desmin) in the paraffin embedded tissue sections from the kidneys of 10 normal kidney (adults and infants), 13 fetal kidney, 12 membranous glomerulonephritis (MGN), 8 membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN), 8 diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis (DPGN). Interstitial and glomerular positive stainings were evaluated., Results: Vimentin expression was similar in normal infant and adult kidneys with positive staining in glomeruli and negative staining in interstitium. In fetal kidneys, glomerular mesangial and epithelial cells and blastematous areas showed positive reactivity with vimentin. Alpha-SMA staining was different among the groups. In fetal kidney, alpha-SMA expression was found in glomerular mesangial cells and blastematous areas. Alpha-SMA staining was positive in peritubular area and glomerular mesangial cells in infant kidney. In adult kidneys, glomerular staining with alpha-SMA disappeared but peritubular positivity continued. Interstitial staining with alpha-SMA was positive in fibrotic areas of proliferative (MPGN, DPGN) and non-proliferative (MGN) glomerulonephritis, but positive glomerular staining with alpha-SMA was found only proliferative glomerulonephritis. Desmin expression was negative in all groups., Conclusions: Desmin is not expressed in early stages of kidney growth, infant and adult kidneys, and proliferative and nonproliferative glomerulonephritis. Interstitial staining of vimentin in the diseased kidney tissues revealed increased fibrosis. Alpha-SMA revealed important differences in different stages of nephrogenesis. Glomerular mesangial staining with alpha-SMA in developing (fetal and infant kidneys) and proliferative glomerulonephritis suggest that it may be a marker of proliferation. In addition, it shows myofibroblastic differentiation in interstitium in diseased kidneys.

This report describes a patient with Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) associated with renal amyloidosis, bilaretal surrenal haematomas and hypoaldosteronism which was clinically asymptomatic. The deposition of AA amyloide was found on the renal and bone marrow biopsies. Bilateral surrenal haematoma regressed after six month from the first events. Colchicine therapy controlled the attacks of the disease.

Several problems in the management of life-threatening mucormycosis remain unresolved, necessitating new methods of management. Four patients with histopathologically proven rhinocerebral mucormycosis were treated with high cumulative doses of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). All had multiple predisposing factors for mucormycosis, particularly leukemia and neutropenia. Two patients refractory to fluconazole therapy were treated with liposomal amphotericin B. The improvement in clinical manifestations was closely related to neutrophil recovery, and all patients were alive at the end of therapy. In addition to surgical debridement and antifungal therapy, G-CSF seems to have played a role in their survival.