Most would agree that the renal ultrasound is an invaluable tool in the workup of acute kidney injury. Although the renal ultrasound can give information regarding kidney echogenicity and presence of renal cysts, by and large its predominant…
This post is somewhat basic but it’s always good to review, right?The FENa is one of the most commonly used tools by both nephrologists and non-nephrologists to assess the etiology of oliguric renal failure in a patient. Classically,…
Testing for the presence of urine eosinophils is often performed when the diagnosis of acute interstitial nephritis is suspected. The landmark paper touting the use of this test is a 1986 New England Journal of Medicine article by…
Though rare, propofol infusion syndrome (PRIS) is a cause of acute kidney injury in the appropriate ICU setting. As we all know, propofol is an intravenous sedative currently favored in the ICU due to relatively short half-life and…
This month’s Kidney International features an interesting report by Vaidya et al which reports on the development of a potentially useful dipstick test able to detect urinary Kim-1, a promising new biomarker for acute kidney injury. As we…
Heard about a case of milk-alkali syndrome at Renal Grand Rounds yesterday. This is an interesting condition whose pathophysiologic mechanism really tests your knowledge of calcium and acid-base homeostasis. I won’t attempt to chart the pathway but a…
I heard a lecture not too long ago on atheroembolic renal disease which claimed that atheroembolic renal disease is to nephrology as sarcoidosis is to internal medicine. That is to say, it can present in a myriad of…
Just like there’s no “I” in team…there’s no “N” in ATN. I heard this expression at our Renal Grand Rounds today featuring pathologist Isaac Stillman at nearby Beth Israel Hospital. It’s not completely accurate, as in many…
Hot topic of research: do kidney stem cells kidney exist? Stem cells are defined as a subpopulation of cells which retain the ability of self-renewal and differentiation into a specialized cell type. Stem cells specific to many tissue…
I heard a talk on “Sepsis & Renal Failure” today, which reviewed much of the recent evidence-based medicine trials regarding the treatment of sepsis in the ICU. Honestly, the main message I came away with was this: most…
