The results from last week’s Poll of the Week are in, and in general, a majority of individuals (64%) felt that their training programs did a good job of teaching them the art of the renal biopsy, while…
The TREAT trial was one of the bigger stories to emerge from this years ASN. This was a large, multicenter trial of darbepoeitin (Aranesp) vs. placebo in 4000 predialysis CKD patients with type 2 diabetes and anemia. The…
We are taught that water is freely diffusable via cell membranes–even in the absence of aquaporin function, there are usually some water molecules which traverse the lipid bilayer. However, there are tissues within the human body which must…
Back from the 2009 ASN Meeting in San Diego! I’ll admit to a few lapses in blogging, but the meeting kept me pretty busy. Thanks to everybody who stopped by the Renal Fellow Network poster and their encouraging…
Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are transcription factors that play a critical role in regulating lipid and glucose metabolism, cell growth and cell differentiation. PPAR alpha is expressed in highly metabolically active tissues (alpha = active), including the PT…
Renal Fellow Network is taking its show on the road…to the ASN meeting in San Diego, CA! I’m presenting a “Renal Fellow Network” poster at the poster session on Saturday, 10/31 (SA-PO2863) if anybody would like to…
Though this is to some degree controversial, volume expansion with normal saline has been associated with the development of a hyperchloremic, non-anion gap metabolic acidosis. What are the mechanisms associated with saline expansion-induced metabolic acidosis? The rationale for…
Get your flu shots, everyone! Renal Fellow Network recently had to take an H1N1-sponsored weekend off, and I strongly suggest getting the vaccine if available to you; this bug is no fun at all. I’ve written about the…
I’ve had to revise the renal biopsy complication rates that I’m quoting my patients after reading this review. – Technically, complications occur in 7.4% to 19.5% of patients. These mostly consist of self-limiting macroscopic hematuria or a peri-renal,…
Final results of last week’s Renal Fellow Network poll: There seemed to be general agreement that volume expansion with isotonic saline is definitely effective, and many individuals also selected the isotonic saline + N-acetylcysteine combination. Interestingly, only 23%…