Publications by authors named "Ike Kim"

Rhabdomyolysis is a known rare and potentially lethal complication of statin use. This toxic effect is potentiated by alterations in hepatic physiology in patients with cirrhosis. Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt placement has the potential to further compound this effect; yet, examples of this have not previously been described in the literature.

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Background: Postoperative pain management following donor nephrectomy can prove challenging for immediate discharge on postoperative day 1 or 2. Although the standard for pain control is utilization of opioids, this increases the risk of postoperative ileus and, if continued inappropriately, increases excess opioids circulating in the community. One strategy that proposes to limit postoperative opioids in kidney donors is the continuous infusion of local anesthetics (CILA), though the effect on patient outcomes is unclear.

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Evidence for a drug interaction between calcineurin inhibitors (CNIs) and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) is meager, and the magnitude of risk for adverse renal effects associated with this interaction is unclear. To explicate these uncertainties, sequential measures of kidney function were evaluated in hospitalized adult solid organ or allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients who received maintenance CNI therapy and concurrent treatment with an oral or parenteral NSAID. A comparator group of closely matched transplant recipients on CNI therapy who did not receive NSAID treatment during hospitalization was similarly evaluated.

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Elderly organ transplant recipients represent a fast growing segment of patients on the waiting list. We examined age-dependent CD4(+) T-cell functions in a wild-type (WT) and a transgenic mouse transplant model and analyzed the suppressive function of old regulatory T-cells. We found that splenocytes of naïve old B6 mice contained significantly higher frequencies of T-cells with an effector/memory phenotype (CD4(+)CD44(high)CD62L(low)).

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