2024 NephMadness Tournament Challenge: Bracket Submissions Due March 31st!
Continuous renal replacement therapy Education Module
Applications open for the WIN Fellow School for Leadership Education
American Transplant Congress 2024: Medical Student & Resident Travel Grant Applications Due 3/11
High Output Cardiac Failure and Pulmonary Hypertension in Kidney Transplant Recipients
The first annual NephMadness Invitation Tournament (NIT) is coming to the National Kidney Foundation 2024 Spring Clinical Meeting (SCM) in Long Beach, CA!
Skeleton Key Group Case #32: Hitting the Reset Button on Hyponatremia
2024 NephSIM Nephrons: Applications Due 11/15
Skeleton Key Case #31: Paralyzing Potassium
The Business of Dialysis
An interesting figure in this month’s ASN Kidney News details the quarterly earnings for three major dialysis companies in the U.S.: DaVita, Dialysis Corporation of America (DCA), and Fresenius. Also included in the figure (not shown here) is…
ASN’s New Logo
The American Society revealed its new logo with the new year: a male form with two glowing kidneys visible inside him, striding into the future (at least, that’s my interpretation as to what he is doing–I guess alternate…
Interferon effects on the kidney
Interferons are cytokines which play a central role in the inflammatory response, and commercially prepared interferons have proven useful in the treatment of several diseases. For instance, interferon-alpha (often used in conjunction with ribavirin) is often used in…
Gadolinium Beliefs
Poll results from last week: The majority of individuals (60%) felt that it was definitely unsafe giving gadolinium to ESRD patients, with 45% of individuals also agreeing that it was unsafe in CKD stage 4. As is consistent…
Cool New Cell Paper Demonstrates Molecular Basis for Thyroxic Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis
The periodic paralysis syndromes are characterized by episodic attacks of acute muscle weakness, typically due to rapid fluxes in the serum potassium concentration, based on an abnormality in intracellular potassium shift. While there have been several instances of…
The Undocumented ESRD Population
Although it is difficult to provide exact number, there are approximately 11 million illegal immigrants residing within the United States. Many of these individuals come from Mexico and other Latin American countries; since there appears to be a…
Pre-Op Cardiovascular Testing for Kidney Transplant Recipients
One of the challenges of taking care of your ESRD patients on the kidney transplant list is deciding on what kind of cardiovascular workup to perform. For obvious reasons, you don’t want to be performing a major abdominal…
Up To Date: The Nephrology Textbook of Today?
The Poll Results from last week were relatively convincing: Up To Date is the most commonly used current reference system for rapidly obtaining nephrology knowledge, with 67% of respondents declaring Up To Date as their top source. I…
Differential Diagnosis of Granulomatous Kidney Disease
Although it’s not common (somewhere between 0.5 – 0.9% of all native kidney biopsies according to published case series), one of the fellows produced an interesting case of granulomatous interstitial nephritis in Renal Grand Rounds today. The case,…
Carotid Endarterectomy for CKD Patients
Cardiovascular complications are the major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with CKD and ESRD. Although myocardial infarction and sudden cardiac death get a lot of attention, stroke is also extremely important in this population. How should…