My 80-year-old patient presented with symptoms and signs of kidney failure. I hospitalized him and asked for the assistance of a kidney specialist. We notified his heart specialist as a courtesy. A complicated evaluation led to a diagnosis of an unusual vasculitis with the patient’s immune system attacking his kidney as if it was a foreign toxic invader.
Treatment, post kidney biopsy, involved administering large doses of corticosteroids followed by a chemotherapy agent called Cytoxan. Six days later it was clear that dialysis was required at least until the patient’s kidneys responded to the therapy and began working again.
You need access to large blood vessels for dialysis, so a vascular surgeon was consulted. He placed a manufactured vascular access device in the patient’s lower neck on a Monday in the operating room. The access was used later that day for a cleansing filtration procedure called plasma exchange. The patient returned to his room at dinner time with a newly swollen and painful right arm and hand on the same side as the surgical vascular access procedure.
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