Anemia is very frequent in patients with acute failure but the nature of the relationship between the two conditions has remained unclear. We studied all patients with well-documented acute renal failure seen in consultation by our nephrology division during 1991. Fifty-three of the 56 patients had at least mild anemia (hematocrit < 35%) at some point during their hospital stay. Forty-three of the patients had a hematocrit below 30% and 14 had a hematocrit below this level on admission. Twenty-four of the patients underwent major operations and all of these patients required blood transfusions. In this group there was a significant correlation between maximum serum urea and lowest hemoglobin (r = 0.4, p < .05) but no similar correlation between maximum creatinine and lowest hemoglobin. Oliguric patients had a mean lowest hemoglobin of 7.3 +/- 0.4 g/dL, which was significantly lower than the value for nonoliguric patients, 9.0 +/- 0.4 g/dL. This study confirms the presence of anemia in 91% of patients with acute renal failure and shows it to be related to rise in urea and presence of oliguria. Clearly, however, the anemia is multifactorial, since in one-quarter of the patients it precedes onset of renal failure.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a worldwide public health problem with significant comorbidity and mortality. Improving quality of life and survival of CKD patients necessitates a large number of preventive and therapeutic interventions. To resolve these issues several organizations have developed guidelines, which are difficult to compare comprehensively. The Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes website at http://kdigo.org compares five major guidelines. The section 'compare guidelines' covers 41 topics distributed over five major subjects: (1) general clinics; (2) hemodialysis (HD); (3) vascular access for HD; (4) peritoneal dialysis; and (5) chemistries. The tables compare guideline recommendations and the evidence levels on which they are based, with direct links to each of the guidelines. These data show that the different guideline groups tend to propose similar targets, but that nuances in the guideline statements, their rationale, and grading of evidence levels present some discrepancies, although most guidelines are based on the same literature. We conclude that there is an urgent need to harmonize existing guidelines, and for a global initiative to avoid the parallel development of conflicting guidelines on the same topics. The tables displayed on the website offer a basis for structuring this process, a procedure which has recently been initiated by a body composed of the five guideline development groups.

Communication and medicine have evolved together. Internet resources now provide an unprecedented opportunity to provide health assistance to the developing world. The International Society of Nephrology Informatics Commission and National Kidney Foundation cyberNephrology initiative (http://www.cybernephrology.org) have created e-mail discussion groups (e.g., NEPHROL, NEPHKIDS, and so forth) and online texts and web resources (e.g., the Schrier Atlas: http://www.kidneyatlas.org) that are, in many respects, ahead of other areas of medicine. On the other hand, nephrology is quite behind in its embrace of some specific communications initiatives that could benefit emerging nations: the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative program, which provides free full-text access to medical journals and books in poorer countries; the Global Health Network Supercourse, which provides specially designed online lectures for the developing world; and Internet2/Abilene and similar research networks around the world, which provide reliable, guaranteed bandwidth for high-quality Internet videoconferencing as an alternative to face-to-face lectures and meetings. The intent of many educational ventures in nephrology, particularly in the clinical practice guideline realm (National Kidney Foundation Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative, Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes, and so forth), is not just to disseminate information but to change human behavior: physician practice and referral patterns, patient compliance, and so forth. Concepts from the worlds of marketing and entertainment, where the science of changing human behavior is highly evolved, can be used to create high-impact, educational offerings to promote health. They can also be highly beneficial to share Internet educational innovations and future vision across boundaries of medical specialties, which is part of the intent of the cyberMedicine joint venture (http://www.cyber-medicine.org).

No abstract