Clearance and Kt/V

The complete removal of a substance expressed as volume per unit time is known as clearance. The hemodialysis machine is built to be a urea clearance machine and typical urea clearance rates range from 200-260 ml/min, far more…

What about the Bicarb?

In our dialysis unit, the standard HCO3 bath is 35 mmol/L. While it is adjustable, it is rarely changed but recently we had a patient with a pre-dialysis HCO3 of 12 which got me thinking about what constitutes…

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Physiological changes of pregnancy

Here are some interesting points I picked up at an ASN review to reinforce Gearoids post discussing changes in reference values during pregnancy and Michael’s board review post which covers a lot of the physiology also. Kidneys increase…

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How to manage lithium toxicity

I recently saw a patient in the emergency department with chronic lithium toxicity and took the opportunity to do some review. Three broad patterns of lithium toxicity are recognized: Acute toxicity – Seen in patients not previously taking…

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Poor phosphate control, or is it?

One of the commonest calls that one gets as a renal fellow in the dialysis unit concerns poor flows from catheters. This is often related to catheter-related thrombus formation and there are a number of different strategies employed…

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RFN teams up with NKF

The editors and contributors of Renal Fellow Network (RFN) are proud to announce the partnership with the National Kidney Foundation (NKF).  You will notice a few changes which we hope will help enhance the site. First, we have…

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