Rapid correction of chronic hyponatraemia can lead to osmotic demyelination syndrome. Ensuring a gradual correction can be difficult, especially in patients on renal replacement therapy (RRT). A 43-year-old renal transplant patient presented with severe chronic hyponatraemia. She required continuous RRT. The hyponatraemia was corrected successfully by manually adjusting sodium concentration in ...

Seven patients with diphtheroid endocarditis after prosthetic valve replacement are reported. Diphtheroids grownfrom blood cultures should not be dismissed as contaminants without repeated blood cultures, agglutinin, and L-form studies. Diphtheroid endocarditis may increase in incidence with the wider use of preand postoperative antibiotic prophylaxis, and may be the cause of some examples of e...

The negative prediction of intrinsic versus transient acute kidney injury (AKI) in septic patients may be facilitated by combined assessment of fractional excretion of sodium and urea. If both excretions are high this would signal the presence of transient AKI and suggest that successful restoration of diuresis by conservative therapy is likely, thus supporting a wait-and-watch approach regardi...

Abstract Aim A recent change to electronic fluid prescribing has enabled us evaluate our adherence recommendations. NICE clinical guideline 174 states that patients should receive 25-30ml/kg/day water and 1mmol/kg/day of sodium, potassium, chloride with regards maintenance therapy. We retrospectively audited practice in surgical patients. Method Patients were selected from two inpatient wards a...

All patients who underwent primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA), revision TKA, primary total hip arthroplasty (THA), and revision THA between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 1996, were retrospectively reviewed to determine the incidence of fatal pulmonary emboli. All TKA patients received 1,000 U of intravenous heparin sodium before the tourniquet was inflated and an additional 500 U of intr...