Background: The kidney has an important role in the metabolism of thyroid hormones. Impaired renal function and the resulting accumulation of uremic toxins may disturb thyroid physiology at various levels. The prevalence of goiter and thyroid nodules is significantly increased in patients with ESRD compared with other hospitalized patients admitted for treatment of non-renal disease. The purpos...

BACKGROUND: To explore the use of Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI) to screen maintenance hemodialysis patients at nutritional risk in Taiwan. METHODS: GNRI was used to assess nutritional risk in 179 hemodialysis patients. Two sets of GNRI cutoff values and a ‘no nutrition-related’ risk assessment were used to divide patients into groups with different nutrition-related risks. For each cl...

Background: Chronic kidney disease is a major risk factor for dementia, but the influence of hemodialysis itself on the development of dementia remains unclear. We previously reported that non-diabetic patients on maintenance hemodialysis have preserved cognitive function; hemodialysis removes blood amyloid β (Aβ), which is a major cause of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain; and the number of Aβ...

Sodium is the principal solute in the extracellular compartment and the major component of serum osmolality. In normal persons in the steady state, sodium homeostasis is achieved by a balance between the dietary intake and the urinary output of sodium, whereas in intermittent hemodialysis patients, sodium balance depends on dietary intake and sodium removal during hemodialysis. Thus, the main g...

INTRODUCTION Purine metabolites constitute a major class of uremic toxins, and reliable characterization of which helps nephrologists to choose the most appropriate treatment for the patients individually. In the present study, we assessed plasma concentrations of hypoxanthine and uric acid as purine metabolites in patients on maintenance hemodialysis, before and after a dialysis session. MAT...

BACKGROUND Non-tunneled (temporary) hemodialysis catheters (NTHCs) are the least-optimal initial vascular access for incident maintenance hemodialysis patients yet little is known about factors associated with NTHC use in this context. We sought to determine factors associated with NTHC use and examine regional and facility-level variation in NTHC use for incident maintenance hemodialysis patie...

To consider the correlation of serum leptin with dyslipidemia in hemodialysis patients. For maintenance hemodialysis patients levels of serum, lipid profiles and serum leptin were measured. Stable hemodialysis patients enrolled to the study. In all patients (36) a near significant,inverse correlation of serum leptin with serum LDL-C was seen. In male hemodialysis group a near significant positi...

INTRODUCTION In some cases, scleroderma renal crisis (SRC) is not easily distinguishable from other thrombotic microangiopathies such as thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, especially when the presentation includes neurological or extra-renal manifestations. Here, we present a case of SRC who developed a rare neurotoxic complication, posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES).A 36-yea...

Minimal pediatric data describe hospitalization causes and associated costs for children who receive maintenance hemodialysis, and no data exist to evaluate methods to decrease hospitalization. In 1999, two common causes of hemodialysis patient hospitalization at Texas Children's Hospital were fluid overload/hypertension (FO/HTN) and vascular access thrombosis (VAT). Evaluated is the effect of ...

The ratio between plasma kynurenine (Kyn) and tryptophan (Trp) serves as a marker of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, a critical immunomodulatory molecule. Simultaneous detection of the two markers may be performed using high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). However, for uremic patients, the conventional detection method may be affected by a range of accumulated toxins. The current study aime...