Anti-Nephrin Antibodies in Minimal Change Disease
Approach to the Patient with Peritoneal Dialysis Catheter Dysfunction- Part 1
Want to write a case report? RFN has you covered with a list of journals to choose from
Have a Nephrology Question? There Might Be A #Tweetorial For That!
Conferences, Courses, & Grants
FOAMed
Interventional Nephrology Series
Focus on Point-of-Care Ultrasound in Nephrology (POCUN) Series
Kidney Biopsy of the Month Series
Poll Results & Post-Boards Weariness
First things first: last week’s poll results showed that the majority of individuals were wary of using physician “Pay For Performance” as a strategy towards increasing AV fistula placement rates. Proponents of this strategy (see editorial by Hakim…
ASTRAL Trial
Another day, another negative study… this is getting painful! The large, randomized ASTRAL trial comparing renal revascularization to medical therapy found no benefit, and substantial increased risk, in the interventional arm. 806 patients with atherosclerotic reno-vascular disease were…
kappa versus lambda light chains in paraproteinemias
Antibodies are comprised of the structure noted on the left: they have two immunoglobulin heavy chains (in blue) and two immunoglobulin light chains (in green), covalently linked with one another via disulfide bonds (in red). The light chains…
Leptospirosis-induced Renal Failure
T-Minus 2 days to the Nephrology Boards exams! For any of you out there studying, one useful resource is ASN’s “NephSAP Core Knowledge Questions“, which can be easily reached via the ASN web page. Unlike the main NephSAP…
Diagnosing Reset Osmostat
The “reset osmostat” is a cause of hyponatremia, sometimes considered a variant of SIADH, in which the kidney retains its ability to appropriately concentrate and dilute the urine; however, the threshold for ADH secretion is reset downward. That…
Aminoglycoside Toxicity
The aminoglycosides are amongst the most well-known nephrotoxic drugs. Yet due to their efficacy against many organisms, they are amongst the most common antibiotics used. The next time your nephrology service goes toe-to-toe with the infectious disease service…
Metformin-induced Lactic Acidosis
Metformin is the only hypoglycemic agent proven to reduce mortality in Type 2 DM. As such, we really should be making every effort to prescribe it, and keep patients taking it. Unfortunately, mostly due to it’s relationship to…
General Support for Kidney Allocation Score
Final results of last week’s Poll of the Week: only 13% of individuals said they outright disapproved of the proposed Kidney Allocation Score, the scoring system which has been proposed to replace the current system of determining kidney…
Classification of Cryoglobulins and MPGN
Cryoglobulinemia is characterized by the presence of circulating antibodies which precipitate at cooler temperatures, and not infrequently leads to renal failure/glomerulonephritis. The stereotypical histologic lesion of cryoglobulinemia is membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis, which takes the appearance on light microscopy of…
Understanding nPCR (Normalized Protein Catabolic Rate)
The normalized protein catabolic rate (nPCR) is a formula commonly used to assess dietary protein intake in dialysis patients, as a means towards determining nutritional adequacy, a major problem in many ESRD patients. For example, say you have…