• BMB Reports
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.373-378
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• 2003

Effects of L-arginine and NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) on the renal dysfunction that is induced by cisplatin (CDDP) were investigated. A single dose of CDDP (7.5 mg/kg i.p.) induced renotoxicity, which was manifested by increasing the sensitivity of isolated urinary bladder rings to acetylcholine (ACh), together with a significant elevation of serum urea and creatinine, and a severe decrease in serum albumin. Moreover, renal dysfunction was further confirmed by a significant decrease of enzyme activities, such as glutathione peroxidase, GSH-Px (E.C 1.11.1.9), catalase (E.C 1.11.1.6), as well as a significant increase in lipid peroxides that were measured as malondialdhyde (MDA) in kidney tissue homogenates. The administration of L-arginine (70 mg/kg/d p.o in drinking water 5 d before and 5 d after the CDDP injection) significantly ameliorated the renotoxic effects of CDDP, as judged by restoring the normal responses of isolated bladder rings to Ach, and also by an improvement in a range of renal function indices, which included serum urea and creatinine concentrations and kidney weight. In addition, L-arginine prevents the rise of MDA, as well as a reduction of GSH-Px and catalase activities in kidney tissues homogenates. On the other hand, the administration of L-NAME (4 mg/kg/d p.o) resulted in no protection against renal dysfunction that was induced by CDDP treatment. The findings of this study suggest that L-arginine can attenuate kidney injury that is produced by CDDP treatment. In addition, L-arginine may be a beneficial remedy for CDDP-induced renal toxicity, and could be used to improve the therapeutic index of CDDP.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.313-317
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• 2017

Symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) is a new renal biomarker for kidney function. It is almost exclusively eliminated by renal filtration. The purpose of this retrospective study was to evaluate the changes in serum ceatinine (CREA), blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and SDMA concentrations in dogs with chronic mitral valve insufficiency (CMVI), according to the severity of CMVI. The evaluation of the severity of CMVI was performed according to the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) classification of heart failure. The dogs were classified into two groups: group 1 (ACVIM B; n = 11) and group 2 (ACVIM C; n = 15). In dogs with advanced CMVI, the serum SDMA concentrations were significantly increased above the normal reference range and were independent of body weight (BW), systolic blood pressure (SBP), or sex. No dog in either group had higher serum CREA concentrations than the upper limit. The serum SDMA concentration may be a better renal marker than serum CREA concentrations for the early diagnoses of renal dysfunction in dogs with CMVI.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.48-52
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• 2019

The ketogenic diet (KD) has been used as an effective antiepileptic therapy for intractable childhood epilepsy. However, various adverse effects have been reported with use of the KD. We report a case of a child who developed acute tubular necrosis subsequent to therapy with KD. A 5-year-old girl had myoclonic epilepsy with developmental delay. She was under the treatment with antiepileptic drugs since the age of 3 months and on the KD during the past 18 months. Proteinuria persisted intermittently with the initiation of the KD and subsequently increased in the past 2 months. She was admitted with intermittent mild fever, vomiting, and lethargy for the past 3-4 weeks. At the time of admission, she presented with hypertriglyceridemia, heavy proteinuria, renal Fanconi syndrome, and acute kidney injury. Renal sonography showed a marked increase in the size and parenchymal echogenicity of both kidneys. A renal biopsy revealed acute tubular necrosis accompanied by early interstitial fibrosis. After the withdrawal of the KD and supportive therapy, without changing other anticonvulsants and their dosages, improvement of renal function was observed. Proteinuria had disappeared after 1 month and kidney size returned to normal after 8 months. It is hypothesized that the KD can induce and/or aggravate the renal tubulointerstitial injury in some patients who are under the treatment with anticonvulsants.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.41-46
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• 2017

Purpose: Thin glomerular basement membrane nephropathy (TBMN) is, along with the IgA nephropathy, the most common cause of asymptomatic hematuria in Korean children. TBMN is usually a benign renal disease not requiring treatment and is associated with a good prognosis, but some cases hematuria is indicative of a state of progressive renal insufficiency. We aimed to retrospectively evaluate clinical manifestations and renal prognosis of patients with TBMN. Methods: Among the 428 renal biopsies performed on children at Yeungnam University Hospital between January 2000 and February 2017, 167 patients were diagnosed as having TBMN. We retrospectively investigated 167 pediatric patients and identified 59 children with follow-up duration >3 years. Results: Among 59 patients, there were 33 boys and 26 girls. Mean age of onset of hematuria was $7.18{\pm}2.64$ years, and mean time from onset of disease until a renal biopsy was performed was $2.48{\pm}2.10$ years. There were no clinical features or laboratory findings among studied children to indicate decreased renal function during follow-up; however, one case progressed to chronic kidney disease (CKD) due to an unknown cause. There were seven patients among these related a positive family history of hematuria or renal insufficiency. Concluson: Although almost all patients had normal renal functions during follow-up, there were one patient who progressed to CKD and seven patients with family history of hematuria or renal insufficiency. Moreover, four among the 428 patients over 17 years underwent repeat renal biopsies, which showed results different from their earlier biopsies.Thus, large-scales studies may be required to determine long-term prognosis of TBMN in children, and further evaluation for Alport syndrome in TBMN cases is essential.

• Annals of Clinical Neurophysiology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.136-142
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• 2001

Background : Nervous system dysfunction is a major complication of end stage renal disease. Although severe neurologic symptoms are partially or completely reversed by adequate hemodialysis, even optimally dialyzed patients will usually not return to normal neurocognitive function. To investigate the influence of chronic renal failure and hemodialysis on higher cognitive function electrophysiologically, we studied auditory P300 event-related potentials in 14 hemodialysis patients and 14 age- and sex-matched normal healthy controls. Methods : The subjects consisted of 14 patients(M: 6, F: 8) with chronic renal failure(CRF) for 1 to 10 years and 14 age- and sex-matched healthy controls(M: 5, F: 9). For the reliability of study, patients with diabetes mellitus, abnormal brain CT findings, or low mini-mental state score(below 20) were excluded. Event related potentials(ERPs) for hemodialysis patients were performed at pre- and post-hemodialysis. To obtain ERPs, subjects underwent 2-tone auditory discrimination test(oddball paradigm). Results : Although the age(control: $48.79{\pm}10.31years$, CRF: $51.21{\pm}7.61years$) and mini-mental state score(control: $27.00{\pm}1.71points$, predialysis CRF: $25.07{\pm}3.58points$) were not different in normal control and CRF groups significantly(P>0.05), P300 latencies at Cz(control: $288.11{\pm}17.36msec$, predialysis CRF: $332.35{\pm}42.34msec$) were significantly delayed(P<0.05)and the duration of Trail making test A was significantly prolonged(control: $64.2{\pm}24.2sec$, CRF: $118.9{\pm}101sec$) in CRF group. P300 latencies between pre- and post-hemodialysis CRF patients(predialysis CRF: $332.35{\pm}42.34msec$, postdialysis CRF: $325.82{\pm}38.69msec$) were not significantly different. The P300 latency was not related with the duration of CRF(Spearman's correlation test, r=0.25, P>0.05) and the frequency of hemodialysis(Spearman's correlation test, r=0.28, P>0.05). Conclusions : From these results, we suggest that P300 latency is valuable in evaluating cognitive brain dysfunction in patients with CRF and hemodialysis does not have a significant effect on cognitive brain dysfunction in patients with CRF.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.137-141
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• 2006

The systolic and diastolic pressures in anesthetized Sprague-Dawley male rats were greatly decreased after single-dose of Cd treatment without significant changes in heart rate. There was a fluid-shift into the third space and/or -loss through the kidney, since plasma $Na^+$ concentration and hematocrit ratio were significantly increased by acute Cd exposure. The present study showed that the sustained hypotensive effect of single-dose Cd on the cardiovascular system might have resulted from the systemic hypovolemia. Furthermore, renal excretion of electrolytes, including $Na^+$ and $K^+$, and urine flow rate were increased by Cd intoxication. Interestingly, the ratio of $Na^+/K^+$ excretion was increased and reached the maximum level 3 hours after Cd injection and returned to the normal level after 7 hours. Nevertheless, there was no difference in the regression analysis of $Na^+$ excretion and urine flow rate in both groups. Therefore, the increase in the urine volume seemed to enhance the excretion of $Na^+$. This study strongly suggest that the hypotensive effect of Cd is mediated by systemic $Na^+$ loss through the kidney and/or hypovolemia via fluid-shift.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.16-26
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• 2024

Patients with kidney disease require frequent blood tests to monitor their kidney function, which is particularly difficult for young children and the elderly. For these people, the standard method is to evaluate serum creatinine or cystatin C or drug levels through venous sampling, but more recently, evaluation using dried blood spots has been used. This narrative review reports information from the literature on the use of dried blood spots to quantify the main markers used to detect kidney diseases. The ScienceDirect and PubMed databases were searched using the keywords: "dried blood on filter paper," "markers of renal function," "renal function," "creatinine," "cystatin C," "urea," "iohexol," and "iotalamate." Studies using animal samples were excluded, and only relevant articles in English or Spanish were considered. Creatinine was the most assessed biomarker in studies using dried blood spots to monitor kidney function, showing good performance in samples whose hematocrit levels were within normal reference values. According to the included studies, dried blood spots are a practical monitoring alternative for kidney disease. Validation parameters, such as sample and card type, volume, storage, internal patterns, and the effects of hematocrit are crucial to improving the reliability of these results.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.61-66
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• 2009

Purpose: Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is considered as the best overall index for the level of renal function, diagnosis of doubtful kidney disease, progress observation from chronic kidney disease and is measured with the various methods. In this study, We measured standard GFR by Gates method and attempted to compare the result with serum creatinin-based, Cockcroft-Gault(C-G) formula and Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) formula. Materials and methods: 217 patients (127 men, 90 women, mean age $51.3{\pm}16.9$) with various renal function were examined. we compared the GFR using $^{99m}Tc$-DTPA (Gates), C-G formula and MDRD formula. Results: Significant correlations were noted between 2 different GFR estimates (from C-G formula: r=0.864, p<0.0001, MDRD formula: r=0.831, p<0.0001) and $^{99m}Tc$-DTPA (Gates) GFR. Average of serum creatinine (Scr) was measured with $3.0{\pm}3.1\;mg/dL$, In patients with normal renal function (Scr<1.5 mg/dL), $^{99m}Tc$-DTPA (Gates) GFR was statistically significant to C-G formula (p<0.0001) and MDRD formula (p<0.0001). In patients with mild to moderate renal insufficiency (1.5$^{99m}Tc$-DTPA (Gates) GFR was not statistically significant to C-G formula (p=0.181) and MDRD formula (p=0.127). In patients with severe renal insufficiency (Scr>4.0mg/dL), $^{99m}Tc$-DTPA (Gates) GFR was statistically significant to C-G formula and MDRD formula (p<0.0001). Conclusions: Glomerular filtration rate using Gates method was closly correlated to C-G formula and MDRD formula. In patients with normal renal function, $^{99m}Tc$-DTPA (Gates) GFR was significantly lower than C-G formula and MDRD formula. In patients with mild to moderate renal insufficiency, $^{99m}Tc$-DTPA (Gates) GFR was simmilar with C-G formula and MDRD formula. In patients with severe renal insufficiency, $^{99m}Tc$-DTPA (Gates) GFR was significantly higher than C-G formula and MDRD formula. None of the three different methods was clearly superior to the others.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.75-84
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• 1967

$^{131}I$-labeled-O-iodohippurate renograms in 15 cases of epidemic hemorrhagic fever(E.H. fever)during oliguric, diuretic and convalescent phase were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, namely by its configuration, Tmax T 1/2 and renal index of Hirakawa. The results were as following: 1) Changes on the renograms in E.H. fever showed simultaneous bilateral renal impairment. 2) The characteristic configurations of renogram in the oliguric phase were: (1) Moderately decreased absolute amplitude of initial spike. (2) Continous rising second slope. (3) No appearance of terminal descent. Those were mast likely to those of renograms in acute ureteral obstruction or acute dehydration state. 3) During the diuretic phase, the renogram showed the point of maximal amplitude, but the steepness of 2nd slope was markedly decreased. The appearance of terminal descents was observed with unusually high amplitude despite of the tremendously large amount of urinary output during this phase. 4) In convalescence, the renograms were essentially normal in configuration, but the renal index of Hirakawa was not recovered until this phase. 5) Renograms in E.H. fever showed the characteristic patterns in each phase of its clinical course. 6) $^{131}I$-OIH-Renogram might be an useful method for the evaluation of renal function in E.H. fever during its course.

• Journal of Korean Medicine for Obesity Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.167-172
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• 2022

Obesity is known as the most common risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Weight loss is needed to prevent liver function damage from progressing to non-alcoholic hepatosteatosis (NASH) and NASH-related liver cirrhosis. The purpose of this study was to observe the recovery of liver function in obese patients with liver dysfunction through traditional Korean obesity treatment. Body weight, liver function levels and renal function levels were examined by prescribing traditional Korean medicine in obese patients with mild elevation of liver function test. Blood tests were conducted at intervals of one month, and it was observed that liver function recovered to the normal range in three patients.