The issue of whether a marked elevation in the BUN when compared with the creatinine might represent gastrointestinal bleeding was nicely covered previously on RFN. One of our attendings recently had our group of first year fellows review…
A talk recently about the HIM study at MGH (Hypogonadism In Men, Clin trial NCT00114114) prompted me to wonder about testosterone from the renal perspective. Testosterone is important for several aspects of male health, including fertility, bone density,…
Keeping the bone theme: A 50-year-old woman with ESRD secondary to PKD underwent a living related-kidney transplant one-month prior. At clinic visit, she was complaining of severe throbbing pain in her hands and feet. The pain was worse…
As you would have likely guessed by looking at the picture to the left we often tend to believe what we see without giving much thought. This is frequently true in the evaluation and management of patients with…
As part of the regular hemodialysis prescription, we as providers have to prescribe the type of membrane we want used for the procedure. This decision is mostly based on what membranes our dialysis unit chooses to buy –…
In the summer of 2010, I came across a health report on the national news that was titled “Angiotensin Receptor Blockers Linked to Cancer”. The headline was based on a publication that demonstrated an increased cancer signal associated…
That’s right you read the title correctly- it reads orthostatic hypertension and not hypotension. Ordering orthostatics on patients is quite common. Most of the time the clinical query is in regards to the latter (hypotension). My mentor,…
Sometimes overlooked, QT interval abnormalities, namely prolongation and dispersion, are important predictors of sudden death to watch out for in the dialysis unit. Of these two, prolongation of the QT interval is the better studied. The QT interval is…
One of the most feared complications of peritoneal dialysis is that of PD peritonitis. Infection with gram positive (50-70%) organisms accounts for the vast majority of cases. The typical presentation is with abdominal pain, fever and cloudy dialysate…
In a recent survey of 630 bone biopsy samples from patients with CKD stage 5 on dialysis, bone turnover was low in 52%, normal in 21% and high in 27% of biopsies. Defective mineralization was found in only…