A pinch of salt - A podcast by ERA

In the latest episode of A Pinch of Salt check out 'Proteinuria - the common suspect', the most obvious whodunit in the pathophysiological process of kidney disease. Things are changing and I start being confused with the labile landscape of proteinuria. A huge number of mechanisms are presented and a large number of molecules are circulating or will circulate soon. In this pleasant tsun...

Is it itching you to know more about CKD-associated pruritus? Do not worry! ERA is there for you! Can you imagine that the number of patients with CKD-associated pruritus in your Unit is more important than your estimations? Do you also have a bunch of patients that you do not know what to do with their itch? In order to know this and many more on CKD-associated pruritus check out the new episode...

I don’t know how it is with you, but lupus has always been the disease that I hated the most. However, IgA nephropathy must be the one that I’m most frustrated about. Primarily, because I feel like there’s nothing I can do about it like I’m some kind of fraud just waiting for the patient to figure it all out and see straight through my incompetence. If you’re struggling with similar emotions, I st...

How many times per day during your dialysis rounds do you find the personnel a bit stressed near a patient suffering from an episode of intradialytic hypotension? And they are actually looking at you for the magic solution! A lot of things are simultaneously passing from your mind but sometimes you are not absolutely sure if you are doing the right thing… Despite the giant leaps of Nephrology in r...

Dialysis saves lives. But only if you can do it and do it well. Enter dialysis access. There is no dialysis without dialysis access. Whose job is it to take care of this vital, crucial part of dialysis? Is it OK to leave this to physicians for whom dialysis is not foremost in their minds? Or should it be the other way around? Should nephrologists become part-time surgeons? If you’re thinking about...

A Pinch of Salt today set sail very far away! We went to the other side of the Atlantic ocean, transversed a few thousand km or miles of land and finally got to Katherine Tuttle, from Washington USA, an eminent specialist on translational medicine who will « unconfuse » us on the « new drugs in nephrology » a series of innovative treatments or indications for currently existing ones. We‘ll talk ab...

One of the most cheeky subjects in Nephrology is the diagnostic and therapeutic interventions on the nutritional status of CKD patients. It is cheeky because when it is not good it may kill the patient and also because it is one of the typical subjects that we « think » we know » but when we scratch a little bit we realise there are huge undiscovered avenues to explore. In order to know a bit more...

Life expectancy is rising in most of the world and with it we have a rising number of elderly individuals in our society. We are used to the type of medicine that is best suited for younger patients – identify the disease, give the best and most effective treatment and cure the patient. However, in elderly individuals the goals might be completely different. Do you think we are going to far someti...

Do you want to know the name of the magic treatment? A treatment that improves the endurance and the force of the patients ? A treatment that makes them feel better and less tired? A treatment that improves their autonomy, their capacities for the daily tasks and their quality of life? A treatment that improves the blood pressure control, the lipid and metabolic profile? And all that for free? Wit...

Kidney stones are a most unpleasant disease. It’s also a dangerous disease, a disease that may cause CKD, a disease that can be linked to a higher cardiovascular risk, and even a potentially deadly disease with concomitant urinary tract infection. Should we, as nephrologists, be more involved in the treatment of these patients? How should we assess and treat patients with recurrent kidney stones?...

Let's share a secret! After a very long period in the desert of stagnating therapeutic options in nephrology, we are living lately one of the most exciting periods of its history. A large number of new treatments and drugs are already in practice or planned to be introduced to our therapeutic algorithms in the years to come. The volume of information arriving every day is huge. Diabetic nephr...

There’s a new kid on the block and he can bang up cancer cells very effectively, but, he doesn’t like to discriminate and won’t think a bit about roughing up the kidney as well. This kid has a fancy name – immune checkpoint inhibitor. Oncologists are raving about it, but nephrologists are freaking out about it. How do we solve this mess? Can cancer patients keep receiving these medications even if...