Having kidney failure is not a unique experience. Neither is receiving a kidney transplant or undergoing dialysis. Adopting to irreversible uremia - a devastating illness- by assisting others to cope with their own life trial represents the best of human traits. Bonded by marriage for 42 years, I was privileged to love and live with a marvelous and unique individual whose approach to life with this horrific disease taught me to regard every moment of our existence as precious. Preparation ...

Diabetic nephropathy is a tragic illness. Its often insidious onset in the insulin dependent (type I) diabetic, typically a young adult, heralds the last act in the course of a disease that will increasingly become the dominant preoccupation in the patient's shortened life. For most type II diabetics, the beginning of clinical renal insufficiency is but a phase in a continuous deterioration that affects the integrity ofjob, marriage, and family. The nephropathic diabetic is hypertensive, h...

Once dialysis treatment, in 1960, permitted life prolongation for some but not all patients in kidney failure, an `ethical genie' was released. The introduction of peritoneal dialysis and kidney transplantation compounded the physician's dilemma by underscoring those left untreated. Who should be selected for uremia therapy? Should exclusion from treatment be properly delegated to administrators or physicians, or better left to a committee? Are some candidates more worthy than others? As e...

After a decade or longer, approximately one-third of individuals with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes commence a downhill course in which decreasing renal function and failing vision define a Renal-Retinal Syndrome, dominating all aspects of life and presaging early death. Only a generation ago, survival after onset of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in diabetes was limited because rehabilitation was preempted by blindness, limb amputation, stroke, and heart disease. By 1998, however, team...

Death on Hemodialysis: Preventable or Inevitable? presents the transactions of the Brooklyn meeting, held in April 1993, including an analysis by Scribner and Schreiner and an introduction by Edmund Bourke. Authors include the heads of dialysis registries for Japan, Europe, and the United States, as well as protagonists of dialyser reuse and short dialysis times. Enthusiasts championed the determination of adequacy of dialysis by formulae or by clinical assessment. All chapters ar...

Fresh insights into the pathogenic mechanisms by which hyperglycemia induces tissue and organ injurt are the basis for rapidly evolving promising therapies in diabetes. Especially promising as targets for intervention are products of oxidative stress, including kinins and growth factors. Improving results of renal replacement regimes now incorporating pancreatic islet transplants are able to delay and prevent end-organ damage in diabetic individuals. The evolving story of the taming of dia...

Increasingly, medicine in general and nephrology specifically is based on clinical trials and verifiable presumption. Still, however, much of everyday clinical practice is the consensus of pundits and experts unable to validate their suggestions beyond personal bias.In this unique volume, several core beliefs in renal medicine are examined and challenged. Starting as assignments for nephrology fellows, this book grew out of surprising `revelations' indicating that `the emperor has ...