Kidney

Q: What causes high protein in a child's urine, and how can you correct the problem?A: If careful and repeated tests have shown that a child has too much protein in the urine (called "proteinuria"), the child's kidneys are not working perfectly. There is a very long list of reasons why kidneys let too much protein get through. Some are temporary and trivial; others are long lasting and very serious. Some causes are treatable; some are not.We'll discuss how protein gets into the urine and some of the XTC common causes of "proteniuria," but, with the limited information you have provided, we can't guess what's causing the problem in the child you wrote about.

The first Marylander to succumb to rabies since 1976 developed the virus through a kidney transplant that took place more than a year before the Army veteran died of the disease in February, national health and defense officials said Friday. Tests performed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since the Marylander's death showed that the Florida organ donor, a 20-year-old Air Force service member, died of rabies, and the same type of rabies was found in both the donor and the kidney recipient.

When 10-year-old Sean Menard's battle with kidney disease took a turn for the worse, his former kindergarten teacher's aide offered him one of her kidneys. When it turned out she was not a good match, her husband volunteered. His act of kindness not only enabled Sean to get the kidney he desperately needed, but it became a vital link in a chain of four donors who would give their healthy kidneys to four people in need of new organs. The University of Maryland Medical Center announced the series of donations Tuesday, which marked its first kidney exchange.

Dr. Gary S. Hill, an internationally renowned renal pathologist and the former chief of pathology at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, died Tuesday from lung cancer. He was 74. Dr. Hill pioneered a new technique for biopsies of tissue, in addition to developing a system for identifying lupus and how far the disease had progressed in a patient. Colleagues and family described him as a man greatly interested in conversation and friends, traits that translated into the way he moved forward in his career.

For months, Valerie Eigner saw her daughter, Jamie Conway, endure exhausting dialysis treatments three days a week, on top of a full-time work schedule that sometimes left her so fatigued she would return from her job and collapse on her bed. The lupus first diagnosed in 2004 had spread to Conway's kidneys, and doctors knew by spring that she would need a transplant. When Eigner heard the news, there was no question of what she would do to help. "When we found out in April that she needs a kidney, I knew I'm going to be tested," said Eigner.

At 71, with more than two years of a punishing schedule of dialysis under his belt, William Kavadias thought a new kidney would never come. Transplants, he assumed, were for the young. But last year, Kavadias' life-saving chance came in an unlikely package - a kidney from an older donor became available. The transplant was successful, and today he's feeling great. It's the kind of surgery that many surgeons won't bother to perform. While kidneys from older donors are not suitable for younger patients, they can save seniors' lives, say some transplant surgeons.

Joy Hindle cried when she found out she couldn't give one of her kidneys to her twin brother. Then doctors gave the Bel Air woman another option: a kidney exchange, in which she would donate her kidney to a patient who needed one, and her diabetic brother would get one from another willing donor. Hindle and brother Paul McSorley were two of six participants in a triple kidney transplant performed last month by doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center. She gave her kidney to a stranger; he got a kidney from a stranger.

ANNAPOLIS -- The poorest Marylanders with kidney disease would be treated free, but others needing treatment would pay part of the cost under a bill passed yesterday by the House of Delegates.The bill would impose a charge on those who make more than $11,000a year or whose assets exceed $12,500.Those patients would pay 5 percent income or assets above these figures for dialysis treat- ments.The legislation seeks to provide coverage free or at low cost for the neediest of 4,200 Marylanders now participating in the program, said Delegate Brian K. McHale, D-Baltimore, a member of the House Environmental Matters Committee, which crafted the bill.

Of course the five-kidney, 10-patient transplant extravaganza at Johns Hopkins Hospital got on the CBS Evening News last month. A dozen surgeons worked all day to fulfill a complex, "my relative will give you a kidney if your relative gives me a kidney" contract that pushed the bounds of clinical logistics. "A huge medical story," said Katie Couric. "A surgical square dance," said CBS correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. A "triumph of the human spirit," transplant director Dr. Robert Montgomery told The Sun. And yet the heroics barely skimmed the ocean of desperate people needing kidneys.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay -- Word got around after Pedro Riveroli, a poor laborer, sold his kidney to a wealthy merchant, and soon he had other offers. He sold his daughter's kidney to an ailing millionaire and his son-in-law's kidney to a retired teacher.Mr. Riveroli was bargaining away the kidneys of two jobless friends last week when police detained him and 19 others in what may be Latin America's first official crackdown on commerce in human organs.The case, dramatic evidence of the economic desperation reigning across the continent, has set off a debate over the ethics of organ donations in societies plagued by disparities in wealth.

Alaska, a Maryland Zoo polar bear that had been rescued from a Mexican circus a decade ago, was euthanized Tuesday after suffering kidney failure, zoo officials said. The bear had been confiscated in Puerto Rico by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents in March 2002 after the circus abandoned her there. When she arrived at the zoo soon after, animal keepers found that she was deaf, overweight and had poor muscle tone, but they nursed her to health and developed a training program using hand signals and other visual cues.

"Alaska," a Maryland Zoo polar bear that had been rescued from a Mexican circus a decade ago, was euthanized Tuesday after suffering from kidney failure, zoo officials said. The female bear had been confiscated in Puerto Rico by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents in March 2002 after the circus abandoned her there. When she arrived at the zoo soon after, animal keepers found that she was deaf, overweight and had poor muscle tone, but they nursed her to health and developed a training program using hand signals and other visual cues.

Regarding Yvonne Wenger 's article on Social Security Disability, she is correct regarding how long it can take for truly needy people to be approved for disability benefits ("After a disability, long waits for federal benefits," Oct. 28). My cousin, who is in her 60s, has had diabetes since childhood. During the last 15 years she has had chronic blood vessel leakage in her eyes and suffered diabetic comas and chronic kidney failures. All that time she continued to work as a special needs teacher assistant.

Margery K. "Margie" Pozefsky, an artist and kidney transplant survivor who supported a kidney swapping transplant program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, died Friday of lung cancer at her Rockland home. She was 71. "Margie was just a wonderful woman who had been one of our patients years ago and then endowed a professorship of kidney transplant surgery at Hopkins," said Dr. Julie A. Freischlag, chair of the Department of Surgery and surgeon in chief at Hopkins. "It was a huge gift, and she also helped enhance our kidney swap program and computerized database," Dr. Freischlag said.

Joan Corbin's day is governed by the humming box in the alcove off her living room. For nearly an hour in the afternoon and nine hours at night, the Smith Island resident must tether herself to a suitcase-sized dialysis machine to get rid of the waste building up in her body. A healthy person's kidneys would perform that vital chore. But Corbin's gave out long ago, after being damaged by infections in her youth. She got a new kidney from her older brother 13 years ago at the University of Maryland Medical Center, which restored her health for a time.

When you grow up taking care of other people, it's understandable that you might put taking care of yourself last on the list. Until, of course, you absolutely have to put yourself on the list. The kidney transplant list. A colleague, Carla Hubbard, spoke frankly with me about this over lunch recently. I asked if she would let me interview her when I found myself standing at the strange intersection of the people I work for and the people I work with at the Johns Hopkins University Press.

LAUREL -- After 25 years of suffering from diabetes, and after operations on both his eyes and both his feet, Jack Salter was given this grim choice by his doctors a few months ago: He could undergo a kidney transplant, or he could die within 90 days.Salter, 61, trains horses at Laurel racetrack. He's been doing it for 40 years. When he went to work a few days after his doctor's pronouncement, he bumped into Karen Young, who's a mutuel teller at the track. They've known each other for a couple of years, the way folks do who work at the same place and make small talk when they see each other.

Ellen Jones, wife of Union Bridge Mayor Perry L. Jones Jr., is recuperating at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore after receiving a kidney from her mother, Irene Brown of Westminster, in transplant surgery Wednesday.Mrs. Brown, 63, was moved to a private room in the hospital shortly after the surgery. Mrs. Jones was moved to a semi-private room Friday. Both were in fair condition yesterday."The doctors expect her to make a full recovery, her and her mother," Mr. Jones said Friday.

Despite dramatic progress in reducing Americans' exposure to lead over the past 25 years, a growing body of research finds that children and adults still face health risks from even very low levels of the toxic metal in their blood. A recent government study, prepared with help of researchers from Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health, tallies the wide-ranging damage low-level lead exposure can do, beyond the well-documented effects of reducing youngsters' IQ and undermining their ability to learn and control their behavior.

Jim Duquette and his daughter Lindsey are recovering after the former Orioles executive donated his kidney to the 10-year-old earlier this month. Lindsey suffers from a rare kidney disorder with no known cure, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis , that destroyed her kidneys, creating the need for the transplant. The transplant won't necessarily cure Lindsey and there is a 50 percent chance the disease will attack the new organs. But the family is hoping it could put her in a form of remission.