Spontaneous renal artery dissection diagnosed by unenhanced magnetic resonance angiography: case report.

A 47-year-old patient is presented who was admitted to the emergency department with complaints of right-sided flank pain and hypertension. His creatinine and glomerular filtration rate were 2.5 mg/dl and 37 ml/min respectively, so that contrast media administration was contraindicated.

Acute renal failure and nephrotic syndrome due to membranoproliferative nephritis during the second trimester of pregnancy.

We report the case of a patient with acute renal failure and nephrotic syndrome during the second trimester of an otherwise uncomplicated pregnancy. Despite pregnancy, percutaneous renal biopsy was performed to evaluate the etiology, showing Type I membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis. Two therapeutic options were considered: pregnancy termination, suggested by the gynecologists, and our proposal of starting steroid therapy, in order to reduce proteinuria and improve renal function.

[Renal biopsy collection (2000-2008) from a single center, the Policlinico Umberto I, Sapienza University, Rome].

The collection of data about renal biopsies is an important starting point for clinical and epidemiological studies about kidney disease. The aim of this study was the evaluation of the frequency of the different kidney diseases, their clinical presentation and the demographic features of the population based on renal biopsies performed at our center during the years 2000-2008. Clinical presentations were defined as nephrotic syndrome (NS), urinary abnormalities, macroscopic hematuria, acute renal failure (ARF) and chronic renal failure (CRF).

Could an echo contrast agent be helpful in identifying renal artery stenosis?

Background: Diagnosis of renal artery stenosis using echo color-Doppler is subjected to several limitations. The aim of this study was to examine if the routine use of a contrast agent could be helpful in identifying renal artery stenosis (RAS).

Methods: We analysed 35 patients affected by RAS using an echo color-Doppler coupled with a contrast agent.

IgA nephropathy in cystic fibrosis.

The kidney does not usually present specific lesions in cystic fibrosis (CF), although in recent years renal involvement has been reported, particularly amyloidosis and immune complex glomerulonephritis. IgA nephropathy is rare. We report four cases of IgA nephropathy out of five renal biopsies performed in the last three years in patients with CF and renal involvement and discuss the possibility of a relationship between IgA nephropathy and CF.

[The concept of "preclinical arterial hypertension" - in light of non-invasive, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring].

In clinical medicine it is possible to find subjects who show initial signs of hypertensive damage being normotensive at the "casual" sphygmomanometry. In order to verify whether or not these subjects are "true normotensives", it was applied the noninvasive ambulatory monitoring of blood pressure (BP). Five studies were performed: I.

Describing and interpreting 24-hour blood pressure patterns in physiologic pregnancy.

The time course of blood pressure in clinically healthy (pregnant and nonpregnant) women was followed by automatic ambulatory monitoring. Chronobiologic methods revealed the time course of dynamic rhythm characteristics as a function of gestational age. Differences were found between nonpregnant and pregnant women with an overall lowering during pregnancy of the rhythm-adjusted midline estimating statistic of rhythm (mesor).

[Modern views on the physiopathologic and clinical aspects of pre-eclampsia].

After an introduction on the hypertensive disease of pregnancy, the paper reviews recent studies on the etiological, pathophysiological and clinical aspects of preeclampsia.

[Asymptomatic isolated hematuria in the adult: proposal of a diagnostic algorithm].

Isolated asymptomatic hematuria in the adult, i.e. hematuria and no evidence of renal or systemic disease, is a perplexing clinical problem.

Renal hemodynamics and urinary excretion of 6-keto-prostaglandin F1 alpha and thromboxane B2 in newly diagnosed type I diabetic patients.

We have studied the functional importance of renal eicosanoids in renal hemodynamics of seven newly diagnosed insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) patients by treatment with two structurally unrelated inhibitors of cyclooxygenase (i.e., piroxicam and sulindac).

Urinary kallikrein activity is not altered in human essential hypertension.

Urinary kallikrein excretion was evaluated in 85 normal subjects and in 149 uncomplicated and recently diagnosed essential hypertensive patients. Moreover, the possible interrelationships between urinary kallikrein excretion and age, sex, electrolyte excretion, and plasma renin activity were examined. In patients with essential hypertension, urinary kallikrein excretion was similar to that of normal subjects.

Plasma renin activity: effect of temperature during blood processing.

Plasma renin activity may be affected by temperature during the processing of blood samples (loss of activity or cryoactivation). We measured plasma renin activity on samples maintained at room temperature up to 240 min. No significant change was found in comparison with samples maintained at 0 degrees C; similarly, no cryoactivation was observed when routine freezing procedures were employed instead of instant freezing.

Characterization of furosemide-induced activation of the renal prostaglandin system.

A detailed time course of changes in plasma renin activity (PRA), urinary prostaglandin (PG) E2, PGF2 alpha, thromboxane (TX) B2 and sodium excretion rates following furosemide was obtained in 7 women. PRA increased within the first 15 min and remained elevated all through the experiment. PGE2, PGF2 alpha, TXB2 and sodium increased simultaneously, reached a peak between 15 and 45 min after furosemide and declined thereafter.

Relationship between kallikrein and PRA after intravenous furosemide.

Interrelationships between plasma renin activity (PRA), urinary kallikrein and sodium excretion were studied before and after furosemide iv administration in nine normal volunteers and in one low renin non hypertensive patient. PRA, urinary kallikrein and sodium excretion increased within 15 min of furosemide injection in nine subjects; kallikrein excretion then decreased sharply, whereas plasma renin activity reached peak values within 15-120 min of stimulation. In low renin subject low basal levels of PRA paralled undetectable values of kallikrein excretion, and PRA and kallikrein excretion showed no increase after furosemide, despite the expected natriuretic response.

Defective calcium absorption in the proximal small intestine in chronic renal failure: effect of dihydrotachysterol.

Intestinal absorption of calcium was evaluated in 6 uraemic patients and in 7 control subjects by a two isotope technique exploring absorption in the four hours following ingestion of the dose. In the first two hours, calcium absorption in the patients was markedly lower than normal and was corrected by 6-10 day administration of dihydrotachysterol, 0.66 mg per day.