Scary article–from both a patient care perspective as well as from a medicolegal perspective–which will make you think about always checking that potassium level before making a decision about skipping dialysis…”Young Mother Dies After Missing Dialysis Treatment“. In…
I included two question marks in the title, since the existence of Lyme Nephritis remains controversial. However, somebody presented a case of alleged Lyme Nephritis in a recent Renal Grand Rounds which was interesting. In brief, the case…
Calcium phosphate stones are actually pretty rare. While calcium oxalate stones comprise about 80% of all instances of nephrolithiasis, calcium phosphate stones typically occur only in a small subset of patients–about 5 to 10% of patients according to…
Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is a rare genetic disease, caused by mutations within one of two genes (TSC1 or TSC2) which is named for the formation of hard tumors (“tubers”) within a variety of tissues, including the CNS,…
There are numerous formulations of recombinant human erythropoietin, but only a few of which are used in the U.S. Generally speaking, all of the formulations have the exact same 165 amino acid core sequence which encodes the human…
While the ACGME regulates the vast majority of post-graduate residencies/fellowships, there are a few exceptions. One of the notable ones is the rapidly evolving Kidney Transplant fellowship. Previously, nephrologists were certified as members of the kidney transplant community…
In 1999, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)–the organization which oversees all residency and fellowship programs in the U.S. and is responsible for their official status as a licensed training program–issued a list of 6 Core…
Dialyzer reactions can be classified into two types: “Type A” and “Type B”.Simplistically stated, one is serious and the other one isn’t. A good pneumonic I recently learned from Dr. Daniel Coyne of Washington University-St. Louis at a…
For many common drugs, we have a good idea of whether or not they are dialyzed off. We know that it’s important to re-dose vancomycin after a dialysis session since some of it is removed; conversely, drugs such…
TB is classically thought of as a pulmonary disease–and in general, this is true, as pulmonary TB is by far the most common (and often very severe) manifestation of infection by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However, the most common NON-pulmonary…