Nate wrote a couple of posts in the past about the use (and misuse) of urinary eosinophils for the diagnosis of acute interstitial nephritis (AIN). Since the original report describing the use of this test in the NEJM…
There is an excellent review of the use of statins is CKD in KI from last month. The authors point out that the association between LDL cholesterol and CVD is not as strong in patients with CKD, particularly…
I give a regular talk to the residents in the ICU on CRRT and one of the things that I focus on is prognosis. We all know that the outcomes of patients requiring CRRT in the ICU are…
The glomerular basement membrane is a thin layer of extracellular membrane proteins that is an important part of the filtration barrier, particularly glomerular permselectivity, by preventing proteins from crossing into the filtrate. The major proteins in the GBM…
There are two important issues to remember when assessing glucose control in patients ESRD, one relating to immediate blood sugar measurement, and another relating to longer term diabetes control. The first has previously been mentioned on this blog….
Cystatin C has been proposed as an alternative marker of kidney function and studies have shown that CyC is a better predictor of mortality that serum creatinine. Although, when first introduced, it was thought that CyC was not…
The routine use of estimating equations for GFR has revolutionized the way that we view renal disease over the last 15 years and although some argue that this has lead to overdiagnosis of CKD, I believe that this…
Hyperoxaluria is an important risk factor for kidney stones, approximately 80% of which are primarily composed of calcium oxalate. Hyperoxaluria is typically diagnosed by performing a 24 hour urine collection and levels above 45 mg/day are considered abnormal…
An article from a few years ago that might provoke some discussion. Some of the recommendations are a little out of date (I don’t think I would target a Hb of 12 anymore in patients with CKD) but…
This was an interesting case. A woman with a previous history of hyperparathyroidism and multiple neck surgeries who developed severe, symptomatic hypocalcemia 3 hours following a parathyroidectomy was thought to have failed because of a persistently elevated PTH…
