Publications by authors named "Rabih Nasr"

Article Synopsis
  • - This case report discusses a 33-year-old healthy African American male who experienced unusual symptoms like penile pain and hematuria, leading to a hospital admission for balanoposthitis.
  • - Despite receiving preventative treatment with heparin, he suffered two cardiac arrests due to pulmonary embolism (PE) and faced multiple complications, including kidney injury and gastrointestinal bleeding.
  • - The patient's case illustrates the diagnostic difficulties of PE in young individuals without typical risk factors, emphasizing the need for heightened awareness and thorough examination in similar situations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Granulomatous interstitial nephritis is a rare form of tubulointerstitial nephritis and has been uncommonly observed with clozapine usage. Additionally, the progression of the disease to manifest as renal failure requiring dialysis is also uncommon. We describe a case of a 56-year-old female who presented with syncope and was diagnosed with granulomatous interstitial nephritis on biopsy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Uremic pericardial effusion and pericarditis in end-stage kidney disease patients remain one of the causes responsible for high rates of morbidity and occasional mortality. While clinical presentation could be variable, clinicians should have a high index of suspicion for uremic pericarditis especially in patients who miss their dialysis sessions. We present a 77-year-old man with end-stage renal disease on dialysis diagnosed with pericarditis and large pericardial effusion complicated by cardiac tamponade and shock.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Calcium channel blockers are a major cause of cardiovascular toxicity. The clinical spectrum of these patients is very variable and there is no consensus on the dose required for toxicity. We present a case of a 43-year-old transgender woman who presented with hypotension and tachycardia owing to drug overdose that was later confirmed to be amlodipine.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Vasculitis, or inflammation of blood vessels, is commonly seen with severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus disease 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It is usually triggered by an autoimmune response induced by the virus, infection by the virus itself and trauma to the epithelial vessels caused by the release of cytokines. We present a case of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (pauci-immune crescentic glomerulonephritis [GN]) superimposed on acute kidney injury caused by SARS-CoV-2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Antipsychotic medications have been well-established to potentially cause extrapyramidal side effects (EPS) including hyperkinesia, tremor, dyskinesia, dystonia, and parkinsonism. Rhabdomyolysis secondary to extrapyramidal symptoms in patients under antipsychotics is a relatively rare presentation to be observed in patients.  In this report, we present a 64-year-old female with rhabdomyolysis following a once-monthly injection of long-acting injectable (LAI) paliperidone palmitate (Invega Sustenna).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Drug rash with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS) syndrome is a severe adverse drug reaction characterized by skin rash, fever, lymph node enlargement, and single or multiple organ involvement. Prompt diagnosis and withdrawal of the offending drug reduce mortality. We report a case of DRESS syndrome along with a review of the literature.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Metformin is widely prescribed as the first-line medication for type II diabetes mellitus. While the gastrointestinal side effects of metformin such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and heartburn are quite common, one dangerous side effect of metformin, lactic acidosis, is extensively discussed yet rarely reported. Here, we discuss a 53-year-old female with type II diabetes mellitus who presented to an emergency department (ED) with chief complaints of dizziness and lightheadedness.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA), or Wegener's granulomatosis as it was formerly referred to, is an antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV). GPA is characterized as a necrotizing vasculitis with few or no immune deposits termed pauci-immune deposits, predominantly affecting small and medium arterial vessels, involving the upper and lower respiratory tract as well as glomeruli. Renal manifestations are of critical importance because of the progression that may ensue following onset.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To determine the incidence, mortality, stage, and recovery of acute kidney injury (AKI) in COVID-19 patients and further analyze the effect of patient demographics and comorbidities on AKI incidence.

Study Design: Our study looked at 1545 charts of patients over 18 years old who presented to BronxCare Hospital in NY with a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR test. Using the KDIGO criteria, any patient presenting with a creatinine of 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a systemic autoimmune disease. It has a myriad of presentations and can involve almost every organ. Its effects on the kidney hold critical importance because patients can ultimately progress to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) if inadequately treated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

BACKGROUND Calciphylaxis is a rare and fatal systemic disease which most commonly occurs in patients with end-stage renal disease. It is a poorly understood vascular calcification with unclear pathology that leads to vascular compromise due to vascular occlusion with endoluminal calcification. CASE REPORT We report a case of a 61-year-old male with chronic kidney disease stage 5 who developed calciphylaxis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

(1) Background: The use of intravenous antibiotics for severe infections is a common practice, either as inpatient or outpatient treatment. In the case of methicillin-susceptible (MSSA), nafcillin is a commonly prescribed intravenous antibiotic, given its known efficacy to treat infections related to this organism effectively. However, it is not without side effects.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Optimal preoperative management of dialysis patients remains challenging. Patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) have higher mortality in the perioperative setting compared with non-ESRD patients. However, it is well established that dialysis should be done on the day before surgery.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: One factor associated with poor outcomes in hemodialysis patients is exposure to a foreign membrane. Older membranes are very bioincompatible and increase complement activation, cause leukocytosis by activating circulating factors, which sequesters leukocytes in the lungs, and activates platelets. Recently, newer membranes have been developed that were designed to be more biocompatible.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background. Alport's syndrome is an X-linked hereditary disorder affecting the glomerular basement membrane associated with ocular and hearing defects. In women, the disease is much less severe compared to that in men.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Vitamin B12 deficiency may have deleterious effects on end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients on maintenance hemodialysis, and may increase erythropoietin stimulating agent (ESA) resistance, yet little is known about its prevalence in this population.

Methods: Serum vitamin B12 and methylmalonic acid (MMA) levels were drawn from ESRD patients prior to hemodialysis. All patients with MMA levels greater than 800 nmol/L had peripheral smears evaluated for B12 deficiency.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Diabetes Insipidus (DI) is either due to deficient secretion of arginine vasopressin (central) or to tubular unresponsiveness (nephrogenic). Drug induced DI is a well-known entity with an extensive list of medications. Polyuria is generally defined as urine output exceeding 3 liters per day in adults.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Previous studies have demonstrated the role of inflammation in diabetic nephropathy (DN). Neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) rather than other white cell parameters was found to be a useful inflammatory marker to predict adverse outcomes in medical and surgical conditions. Nevertheless, the value of NLR in predicting DN has not been elucidated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF