Seminars in Dialysis this month have published an excellent review of the diagnosis and treatment of peripheral vascular disease in patients with CKD. This is something that we deal with on a regular basis in the clinic and…
AJKD this month has an extended editorial section on the KDOQI guidelines for CKD. It is now 10 years since these guidelines were introduced and their impact on nephrology has been significant, not least due to the fact…
The topic of IgA nephropathy has been discussed in multiple posts here in the past. IgA is the commonest primary GN with a wide variety of presentations and prognoses ranging from isolated hematuria to a rapidly progressive GN….
A couple of years ago, it was noted that mTOR inhibitors slowed the growth of cysts in animal models of Polycystic Kidney Disease. Although the activity of mTOR is minimal in normal renal epithelial cells, in cyst epithelial…
Last year, we had a post about Bardoxolone for the treatment of diabetic nephropathy. After one year of treatment, eGFR increased significantly in patients treated with Bardoxolone relative to controls. At the time, significant concerns were raised about…
This month’s eJournal Club article is not a traditional, clinical or basic research article but instead one which looks into the state of nephrology training in the US. There has been a significant decline in the number of…
When I got my US driving license, I was asked whether or not I would like to be an organ donor. To me, having seen the positive effects of donation on the lives of my patients down through…
In a previous post, we discussed the way the cilastatin prevents imipenem nephrotoxicity by inhibiting dihydropeptidase, a proximal tubular brush border enzyme which facilitates the uptake of imipenem metabolites into proximal tubular cells. This allows imipenem to be…
One of the issues that we come across repeatedly in the clinic is the timing of access insertion. We all want to avoid the use of catheters and so we refer patients early (when possible) for fistula formation….
Diabetes is a common cause of CKD and the prevalence of diabetic nephropathy is increasing. A question that sometimes arises in the clinic is when it is appropriate to biopsy a patient with a presumptive diagnosis of diabetic…
