Filitsa Bender's research while affiliated with University of Pittsburgh and other places

... In these patients, the increased levels of urea in the bloodstream drove the downregulation of the phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT) pathway, causing the inhibition of glucose uptake through the hyperactivation of the glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK3β). 129 This is consistent with the finding that inhibiting GSK3β in a mouse model of kidney disease restores ROS production and the fungicidal activity of neutrophils to protect from systemic candidiasis. These observations suggest the possibility of repurposing selective GSK3β inhibitors, such as lithium chloride, to treat fungal disease. ...

... In 27 validation studies, 9 studies are from the USA[37,[49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. 7 studies are from Iran[40, 57-62]. 1 study each is from South Korea [63], Japan [64], the Netherlands [65], Poland [66], UK [67], Ireland [61] and United Arab Emirates [36]. ...

... Within therapies for chronic non-severe hyponatremia, oral urea as an oral osmotic diuretic that increases urinary water excretion appears to be a very effective and safe treatment for the prevention of possibly associated morbidity and mortality [36]. Since, it has been tolerated poorly due to its taste, there are newer, proven safe and efficient, oral American formulations enhancing its palatability [37]. The dose of oral urea is 0.25-0.5 g/kg/day and it should be increased in cases of a higher urine osmolality, usually >30 g/day [38]. ...

... However, there are very few studies reporting spectrum of predialysis patients' symptoms in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients and little is known about the burden of symptoms of predialysis patients especially PD patients [6]. In addition, unlike many predialysis indictors linking to the patients outcomes, such as GFR, serum albumin [7,8], calcium [9,10], body mass index [11], and comorbidities [8,12], the potential predictive value of patients' predialysis symptoms have not been fully elucidated. ...

... Between 45% and 80% of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) struggle with sleep-related problems; nearly half of individuals with CKD have these problems at the beginning of their illness [4]. Compared to patients receiving continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (PD), patients receiving automated PD appear to have less severe sleep-related breathing disorders (SBD) [5]. There appears to be a decreased incidence of sleep-related issues after kidney transplantation [6]. ...

... • Nous recommandons que chaque programme mesure et surveille, au moins une fois par an, l'incidence des infections liées aux cathéters (1C [17]. Les incidences rapportées des infections du site de sortie varient considérablement, allant de 0,06 à 0,42 épisode par an [13,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Dans l'essai HONEYPOT portant sur 371 patients en DP dans 26 centres de 3 pays (Australie, Nouvelle-Zélande et Singapour) entre 2008 et 2012, le taux d'infection du site de sortie était de 0,29 épisode par an dans le groupe de soins standard utilisant la mupirocine contre 0,37 épisode par an dans le groupe de traitement antibactérien au miel [22]. ...

... Other studies of health literacy in PD patients have used the REALM or Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults to measure health literacy (13)(14)(15). Those tools have been widely used for research purposes, but are difficult to apply in clinical practice. ...

... Elevating serum albumin level, maintaining the sufficiency of dialysis and reducing the volume load of patients play a vital role in lowering the hospitalization rate of PD patients. [22][23][24] In this retrospective study, no death was observed in the HD and PD groups within 5 years, indicating that the competition risk for death is partially reduced by the hospitalization, which is consistent with previous findings. [25] ...

... (2015) also did not nd signi cant differences between health awareness and PD [11]. A possible explanation is that the respondents have high economic and knowledge levels; as previously discussed, PD-related information can be easily obtained, and acquiring knowledge is convenient. ...

... In other words, self-care behavior in patients with CKD are complex as individuals may have different perspectives on their illness, and their priorities, expectations for support, trust in healthcare providers and the healthcare system, and how they go about carrying-out their self-care may vary. Additionally, studies conducted up to now have investigated health literacy in CKD using tools for measuring only the functional aspects of health literacy, such as numeracy skills and reading comprehension [26][27][28], and have not captured health literacy scales that are important in healthcare delivery, such as the ability to appraise health information or engagement with healthcare providers [29]. Given that only a limited number of studies have comprehensively identified challenges that patients with CKD patients experience in understanding and applying health information in their daily life, further studies are needed in this context. ...