I'm Dr. Joshua Schwimmer, a nephrologist and internal medicine physician in New York City. • Kidney Notes was the first active nephrology blog. (Trivia: Kidney Notes is so old that the National Library of Medicine still uses it as an example of how to formally cite blogs.) • Professionally, you can find me at Kidney.nyc. • Kidney Notes is for educational purposes only, not medical advice. Consult qualified health care professionals. See disclaimer.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Nephrology Cases / On Call Musings: Very Different Clinical Situations That Look Alike
A 65 year old man with known congestive heart failure presents with pulmonary infiltrates, respiratory failure, and a low serum sodium of 117. Is it primarily congestive heart failure or is it pneumonia with the low sodium related to SIADH? Surprisingly, it turned out to be the latter. This is a situation where a Swan-Ganz catheter was extremely useful.