No, this is not the title of the next Dan Brown novel (although the quality of the writing may sometimes compare, you will not find phrases like “the famous man looked at the red cup” here). I’m referring…
Pancreas transplantation is considered the treatment of choice for patients with refractory Type I Diabetes Mellitus. The first pancreas transplant was described in 1967 by Kelly et al. (pictured) and was performed with a simultaneous kidney transplant in…
I had a moment of panic a while back when one of my patients had a seizure after his second ever hemodialysis treatment. I was concerned that perhaps the dialysis disequilibrium syndrome (DDS) might have contributed to the…
In the evaluation of patients with hyponatremia (serum Na less than 135 mEq/L), differentiating hypovolemia from euvolemia is often challenging, particularly if the history and physical findings are unrevealing and frequently leads to misdiagnosis. This conundrum exists even…
Average fructose intake in the U.S. is staggering: Americans currently consume approx. 150 pounds of sugar a year, which is 20 times the amount their European ancestors would have ingested from fruit (Data from USDA). This intake is…
About 40% of patients treated with mycophenolate after transplantation develop GI side-effects, the commonest of which is diarrhea. A number of strategies can be employed to reduce the severity of these complaints. First, the dose can be taken…
KDOQI guidelines emerged in 2002, classifying CKD in 5 stages based on the presence of kidney damage or GFR below 60ml/min, irrespective of cause. This classification increased the awareness of CKD in the general population and placed the…
The May issue of AJKD (Vol.55, No.5) had a nice supplement on TLS and AKI. Here is the link. Tumor lysis syndrome (TLS) describes a condition with significant clinical and lab abnormalities caused by rapid and massive tumor…
As a new renal fellow I’ve felt fairly comfortable with the list of NSAID associated renal conditions. But after taking care of a patient this past month with fulminant hepatic failure due to a Tylenol overdose it’s been…
Researchers from the UK published a new and exciting article exploring one of the fundamental mechanisms of blood pressure regulation by the renin-angiotensin-system (RAS). This research was, per the authors, 20 years in the making and was fittingly…