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%…
Here are a few important guidelines for prescribing RRT in the Neuro ICU gleaned from this review. First off, a recap of the physiology… Intracranial pressure increases are buffered by CSF, such that increased ICP leads to increased…
The ability to adequately suppress the immune system and prevent allograft rejection has been a true success story over the past several decades. With the advent of drugs such as calcineurin inhibitors, induction agents such as thymoglobulin, azathioprine…
Hypouricemia is defined as a serum uric acid level less than 2mg/dL. Although it is generally considered benign, hypouricemia has been associated with several important conditions relevant to nephrologists, including acute kidney injury, uric acid nephrolithiasis, and SIADH…
File “Gordon Syndrome” under “interesting causes of hyperkalemia and metabolic acidosis you may never see.” Also called pseudohypoaldosteronism type II, Gordon Syndrome is relevant less so for the number of patients afflicted but more due to the interesting…
There are a variety of drugs which can result in hyperkalemia, via a variety of mechanisms. Here are a list of some of the common offenders, categorized loosely based on mechanism, though admittedly there is some overlap between…
Geriatric nephrology is in focus in this weeks NEJM with this excellent article by Tamura et al. By linking the USRDS database to a national registry of nursing home residents, they were able to document changes in functional…
It was a close vote that came down to the wire, but there was an ever-so slight preference for peritoneal dialysis modalities (53% CAPD+CCPD) as compared to hemodialysis modalities (47% standard hemo + home hemo) when RFN readers…