There are several clinical trials regarding the slowing of progression of polycystic kidney disease currently being conducted; amongst the drugs being studied are V2 receptor antagonists. The rationale for this is that cyclic AMP (cAMP) is known to…
Dialysis adequacy is traditionally measured as either Kt/V (most popular in outpatient dialysis units) or urea reduction ratio (URR, most popular with acute dialysis/inpatient dialysis units). Both methods use the degree to which urea is cleared–by comparing the…
Congenital nephrotic syndrome only makes up between 2-8% of all forms of nephrotic syndrome, but is a hot topic in that there are numerous genes continuously being identified which are helping to advance our understanding of podocyte biology….
Toluene–a hydrocarbon which is present in gasoline, paint thinners, and many industrial solvents–can have a variety of effects on acid-base metabolism by the kidney: it can cause both a non-anion gap OR an anion gap metabolic acidosis, depending…
Renal pathologists may throw out the term “full house” immunostaining…what does this mean? This means quite simply that all five major immunofluorescent stains on a renal biopsy (IgM, IgG, IgA, C3, and C1q) are all positive. The analogy…
One of the as-yet unresolved major controversies in nephrology is whether or not the entity “hypertensive nephropathy” really exists. Certainly there are a large percentage of the dialysis population who do not have diabetic nephropathy, glomerulonephritis, nephrotic syndrome,…
Any nephrologist practicing in the U.S. does not need to be told that there is an increased incidence of end-stage renal disease in blacks. Furthermore, certain diseases–such as collapsing focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), occur almost exclusively in black…
In this month’s C-JASN, “The Declaration of Istanbul” is presented. Recently a group of world leaders of the transplant community held a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey during which the general topic of discussion was the ethics of…
Another oncologic medication with a specific renal side effect is gemcitabine (Gemzar), a nucleoside analogue used with frequency to treat cancer of the lung, pancreas, breast and colon to name a few. Gemcitabine can cause a thrombotic…
The human angiotensin coverting enzyme (ACE) gene is located on chromosome 17q23 and is comprised of 26 exons and 25 introns. Importantly, there is an insertion/deletion polymorphism in which a 278-bp fragment is either present or absent within…
