Recovery of dialysis patients with COVID-19 : health outcomes 3 months after diagnosis in ERACODA

Background. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related short-term mortality is high in dialysis patients, but longer-term outcomes are largely unknown. We therefore assessed patient recovery in a large cohort of dialysis patients 3 months after their COVID-19 diagnosis. Methods. We analyzed data on dialysis patients diagnosed with COVID-19 from 1 February 2020 to 31 March 2021 from the European Renal Association COVID-19 Database (ERACODA). The outcomes studied were patient survival, residence and functional and mental health status (estimated by their treating physician) 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis. Complete follow-up data were available for 854 surviving patients. Patient characteristics associated with recovery were analyzed using logistic regression. Results. In 2449 hemodialysis patients (mean ± SD age 67.5 ± 14.4 years, 62% male), survival probabilities at 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis were 90% for nonhospitalized patients (n = 1087), 73% for patients admitted to the hospital but not to an intensive care unit (ICU) (n = 1165) and 40% for those admitted to an ICU (n = 197). Patient survival hardly decreased between 28 days and 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis. At 3 months, 87% functioned at their pre-existent functional and 94% at their pre-existent mental level. Only few of the surviving patients were still admitted to the hospital (0.8-6.3%) or a nursing home (∼5%). A higher age and frailty score at presentation and ICU admission were associated with worse functional outcome. Conclusions. Mortality between 28 days and 3 months after COVID-19 diagnosis was low and the majority of patients who survived COVID-19 recovered to their pre-existent functional and mental health level at 3 months after diagnosis

Multilamellar or multivesicular vesicles?

Recently attention in liposome preparation technology has been focused on the preparation of liposomes with a large number of bilayers. These liposomes offer the possibility to encapsulate large amounts of hydrophobic drugs. All methods used to prepare these vesicles are modifications of the method used to produce reversephase evaporation vesicles (REV), as described first by Szoka and Papahadjopoulos (1978). The names for these multi-layered vesicles are: stable plurilamellar vesicles (SPLV), multilayered REV (MLV-REV) and multilamellar vesicles. In order to avoid confusion we will refer to the vesicles prepared by Bangham et al. as multilamellar vesicles (MLV) and to those multilayered vesicles prepared by emulsion techniques as REV-MLV. Gruner et al. compared the physical characteristics of MLV and SPLV. They found that these vesicles had different properties for stability, entrapment efficiency and biological effects, even if they were made from the same materials and appeared quite similar in the electron microscope.multilamellar vesicl