A landmark paper on membranous nephropathy was published by Beck et al in the most recent issue of NEJM. Ultimately we will have to see if the finding is reproducible, but based on the data presented this represents…
A cool article from this month’s AJKD describes several of the Nephrology-related aphorisms originally penned by Hippocrates sometime around 400 BCE. These brief, pithy sayings probably represent the earliest attempts to understand the kidney in health and disease…
Testing for the presence of urine eosinophils is often performed when the diagnosis of acute interstitial nephritis is suspected. The landmark paper touting the use of this test is a 1986 New England Journal of Medicine article by…
We’re all taught that looking for dysmorphic red blood cells on urinalysis is a useful marker of glomerular hematuria. But how do we define “dysmorphic”? And how was this association originally studied? One landmark paper was this 1991…
One of the easier aspects to taking an examination like the boards is pattern recognition: there are certain images or associations that should be immediate triggers for a particular diagnosis. One good example of this is a knowledge…
There are only limited treatment options for hepatorenal syndrome, and many would argue that treatment of type I hepatorenal syndrome (the bad kind) in the absence of a plan for liver transplantation is a futile effort. Over the…
Pictured on the left is Bob Cratchit and his crippled son, Tiny Tim, two beloved characters from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In this fun 1992 article by the pediatrician D.L. Lewis, the case is made that Tiny…
Though rare, propofol infusion syndrome (PRIS) is a cause of acute kidney injury in the appropriate ICU setting. As we all know, propofol is an intravenous sedative currently favored in the ICU due to relatively short half-life and…
Hyponatremia can be broadly divided into two fundamental categories: “true hyponatremia” (in which the serum sodium concentration is truly less than normal), or “pseudohyponatremia,” in which the serum sodium concentration is actually normal but erroneously reported as low…
Let’s talk about rapid A.B.G. analysis. Just to clarify, I’m talking about arterial blood gases, not the religious rap group “Adopted By Grace” I just discovered existing by googling the phrase “ABG”. I tend to use Winter’s Formula…
