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
Pendred Syndrome
Pendred Syndrome is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations in the solute carrier family 26 member 4 gene (SLC26A4) which has some relevance to nephrology and acid-base metabolism. Its main phenotypic manifestations are thyroid goiter and sensorineural…
Mineralocorticoid-Blocking Activity of Oral Contraceptives
I didn’t learn this until recently, but some commonly used oral contraceptives–for example Yasmin-28 (the progestin-derivative drospirenone + ethinyl estradiol)–has some mineralocorticoid blocking effect, similar to that seen for spironolactone. It may therefore be associated with hyperkalemia, particularly…
Survival Rule of Threes
I recently learned the “Survival Rule of Threes”–which gives a rough estimate of how long a person can live in various extreme survival conditions. For example…. …you can expect to live for 3 minutes without air. …you can…
Symptoms and Signs of Hypocalcemia
Calcium is a critical ion for a number of cellular signaling events. As such, it is not surprising that hypocalcemia leads to a wide variety of signs and symptoms. The dominant presentation of hypocalcemia is usually neurologic in…
More on MYH9 and “HTN-Associated ESRD”
What’s the most common cause of ESRD in the U.S. after diabetes? The classic answer here is “hypertension”, though this answer is a controversial one, as there are many who believe that hypertension alone is not sufficient to…
Triphasic diabetes insipidus
In central diabetes insipidus induced by cerebral trauma or following neurosurgery, there is a “triphasic” presentation which may occur. Briefly, the patient begins with a tendency towards hypernatremia, then develops a tendency towards hyponatremia, and finally ends with…
Acquired versus Hereditary Forms of Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis
Hypokalemic periodic paralysis is a relatively rare disease in which individuals experience transient, severe episodes of hypokalemia as a result of rapid intracellular potassium shift into skeletal muscle. The attacks typically manifest as muscle cramps, muscle paralysis, or…
IVIG & Hyponatremia
It has been long recognized that IVIG–given for a variety of immune-mediated diseases and infections–has been associated with hyponatremia. In the recent “Electrolytes” edition of Neph-Sap, their explanation is a multifactorial one: 1. pseudohyponatremia: there is a massive…
Limitations of FENa in CKD
There is an insightful article in this month’s C-JASN entitled “Misapplications of Commonly-Used Kidney Equations: Renal Physiology in Practice” by Nguyen et al which is kind of fun to read. One of the clinical vignettes they present involves…
“Pay It Forward” Transplant Strategy
In last week’s New England Journal of Medicine there was a cool article by Rees et al describing a unique pair matching strategy for kidney transplants in which an ongoing chain of kidney transplantations–beginning with a single altruistic…