Exam 1: Nephrology/Urology & Dermatology Flashcards
Which of the following tests on a dipstick are reliable?
Leukocytes, protein, pH, SG, blood, urobilinogen, glucose, ketones
Protein, pH, blood, glucose, ketones are reliable.
Ignore results from leukocytes, SG & urobilinogen
What is renal failure?
Clinical syndrome that occurs when kidneys are no longer able to maintain regulatory function, excretory function and endocrine function.
What percentage of nephrons must be nonfunctional before renal failure occurs?
75%
What is renal disease and how does it differ from renal failure?
The presence of morphological or functional lesions in one or both kidneys regardless of extent.
Renal failure relies on extent (75% nephron loss). Renal disease may or may not result in azotemia, decreased USG, etc.
What is uremia?
The constellation of clinical signs and biochemical abnormalities associated with critical loss of functional nephrons resulting in extra-renal manifestations of renal failure such as uremic gastropathy, hyperparathyroidism, etc.
What other abnormalities (biochemistry) may occur with uremia?
Azotemia, hypoalbuminemia, hypercholesterolemia, metabolic acidosis, hypocalcemia, hyperparathyroidism, hyperkalemia.
What is the gold standard for determination of GFR?
Renal scintigraphy
Usually only found in university settings
What are the accurate methods of determining GFR?
Renal scintigraphy, iohexal clearance, inulin clearance, creantinine clearance.
What are the indirect methods used to determine GFR?
Serum urea levels, serum creatinine levels, Cystatin C, SDMA
What extra-renal factors may influence serum [urea]?
species/age liver function (synthesized in the liver) Dietary protein content (high protein diet = higher BUN) Endogenous protein catabolism (same as high protein diet)
What are the limitations in using serum [urea] to evaluate GFR?
Urea is reabsorbed in the tubules (falsely decreases GFR) High protein diet (protein --> ammonia --> urea) GIT bleeding (similar as high protein diet)
What are the limitations in used serum [creatinine] to evaluate GFR?
Will not show elevated values until GFR has decreased to 25%.
Dependent on muscle mass:
Implies lower GFR in heavily muscled animals - higher serum [creatinine]
Implies higher GFR in poorly muscled animals such as geriatric and/or cachexic patients - lower serum [creatinine]
What biochemistry changes can be seen in blood work when 40% of GFR has occurred?
SDMA increase
What is the gold standard for determining urine concentration? What’s most often used in practice and what are it’s limitations?
Gold standard is osmolality.
Most often used is urine specific gravity.
USG is influenced by the number and size of particles (e.g. glucosuria falsely increases concentration)
What are the ranges for minimally concentrated USG?
1.013-1.030
What are the ranges for inadequately concentrated urine?
1.013<1.022
Reference range for normal USG in dogs?
> 1.030
Reference range for normal USG in cats?
> 1.035
What are the ddx’s for hyposthenuric urine?
Diabetes insipidus, psychogenic polydypsia
When performing a water deprivation test, at what point would you expect maximal stimulation of ADH release?
after 5% loss of body weight
What is fractional excretion and how is it used when evaluating kidney function?
Fractional excretion measures electrolytes in the urine compared with creatinine to evaluate for renal tubular dysfunction.
If the kidneys are functioning properly, there shouldn’t be >1% Na+ lost in the urine. If the FE <1%, there may be prerenal disease present.
What changes occur as urine sits at room temperature before the sediment is run?
Growth of crystals
Disintegration of casts and cells
What may cause a false positive on a urine protein creatinine ratio and how might you avoid this false positive?
Lower urinary tract disease
Run a sediment to r/o UTI prior to UPC.
Urine sample is red. What could cause that? How would you determine which is the culprit?
Red discoloration in the urine may be caused by RBCs, hemoglobin or myoglobin.
Centrifuge the sample: if a red pellet forms at the bottom, RBCs were the cause.
If the supernatant is still discolored red: look at the patient’s centrifuged blood sample. Myoglobin doesn’t accumulate in the blood stream so if the serum/plasma is discolored, it’s hemoglobin. Alternatively, run a CK: muscle damage = myoglobin