A message from the IPTA Publication Committee especially for young researchers presenting orals, mini orals, or abstracts at the next 2023 IPTA Congress -
IPTA promotes involvement of young researchers who work in places where publication is not considered a priority in the scientific community. For this purpose, a peer-mentoring program has been developed. Hereby, young researchers can access research projects improving their publication yield. There are four levels of mentoring, with increasing participation of the mentor from level 1 to 4, sharing authorship if applicable. At level four, virtual and/or face-to-face help is contemplated as a "visiting professor." The four levels are the following:

1. At this most basic level help with publication is provided for non-native English speakers. A mentor will act mainly as a “proofreader” and will help with language correction. If the help does not imply manuscript revision, usually, he/she will not share the authorship of the paper and will only be acknowledged for the contribution.
2. A second option is that a mentor substantially contributes to the writing of the manuscript. This is more demanding and may or may not be a cause for authorship sharing, depending on the extent of the contribution.
3. If the mentor has also contributed to the intellectual content leading to the development of research and the subsequent manuscript, authorship should be shared.
4. In specific cases, mentorship may be an ongoing process whereby the mentor takes the role of a “visiting professor” or provides “teaching webinars” on writing papers or developing research projects. In addition, the level of involvement may be modified over time, according to the expectations of bothe the mentor and mentee.

Don’t miss this opportunity of being mentored by those experienced researchers in the pediatric transplant community. Moreover, if you are part of an emergent pediatric transplant program, from a low or low-middle income country, it is important for you to know that a new type of article has been included in “Pediatric Transplantation”: Global Forum articles, coordinated and supervised by Dr. Burkhard Toenshoff. These articles would address the shortage of pediatric transplant data from low resource settings. Authors may describe the transplant processes (deceased and/or living donor), patient characteristics, donor profiles, and clinical outcomes of a single center, region, or country. The authors are at liberty to discuss the barriers to transplantation encountered, issues in setting up a new pediatric transplant program, and propose strategies to overcome these challenges, including opportunities for advocacy from the global pediatric transplant community.

Again, don’t miss this train. The support is there. Just get started.

Kidney-transplanted Adolescents-Nonadherence and Graft Outcomes During the Transition Phase: A Nationwide Analysis, 2000-2020
Kindem IA, Bjerre A, Hammarstrøm C, Naper C, Midtvedt K, Åsberg A
Transplantation 2022 Dec 8:TP.0000000000004431. doi: 10.1097/TP.0000000000004431. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36476728.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW ONLINE ARTICLE

Although adolescent and transition period remains the most vulnerable time for kidney graft dysfunction; medical literature exploring the cause for this is scarce, conflicting and often inadequate. Medication non-adherence (non-initiation, non-implementation, and non-persistence) continues to be the major suspect and can lead to an increased risk of rejections, reduced graft function, development of de novo donor-specific antibodies (dnDSAs), and in the worst case, graft loss. In this pan Norwegian registry study (comparing 371 individuals transplanted <26 years of age with 1459 transplanted between the age 26 to 50 years) medication non-adherence has been re-confirmed as the main cause of graft loss during the transition phase and accounted for 58% of the cases, versus 12% in the 26–50-y group, p<0.001. This got reflected in compromised 5 year graft survival in the adolescent group (89%; 95% confidence interval, 85%-92% versus 94%; 95% confidence interval 92%-95% respectively, p=0.01). The majority of the adverse events occurred shortly after transfer to the adult department, that is, 81% of the graft losses, 77% of the developed dnDSAs, and 60% of the acute rejections. Despite the limitations of retrospective design and dependence on case notes for diagnosis of adherence the strength of the study was its utilization of the robust Norwegian registry with almost 100% coverage and continuous information about outcomes during the transition period. Early last decade both International Pediatric Nephrology Association and International Society of Nephrology published comprehensive transition guidelines but this article by Kindem et al should be a reality check for all transplant physicians involved with pediatric kidney transplantation. Linking 58% of graft loss to non-adherence in this age group even in a resource replete set up like Norway underscores the large amount of work which still needs to be done in transition care and the need for according high priority to this topic.