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Alex Chang, MD

@alexchangmd.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.3K following 315 posts

Associate professor, clinician-scientist/dad/husband interested in early prevention/treatment of kidney disease tweets=personal views #nephsky

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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Swapnil Hiremath 🍁🇨🇦 @hswapnil.medsky.social · 08/10/2026
“A la croque-au-sel” Syndrome: An unusual Cause of Diet-Induced Hyperkalemia - Kidney International Case Reports www.kicasereports.org/article/S311... This was the first article that was ever submitted to the journal!
kicasereports.org
“A la croque-au-sel” Syndrome: An unusual Cause of Diet-Induced Hyperkalemia
Hyperkaliemia is a common electrolyte disorder resulting from an imbalance between potassium intake, transcellular potassium shifts, and renal excretion. In some cases, etiological investigation may b...
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
NKF Nephrology Professionals @nkf-professionals.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Explore Genetics in Kidney Care The Genetics in Kidney Health Summit Recordings Showcase brings together established approaches, emerging research, and patient stories. Watch on demand: vimeo.com/showcase/124...
vimeo.com
2026 Genetics in Kidney Disease Summit on Vimeo
Join the web’s most supportive community of creators and get high-quality tools for hosting, sharing, and streaming videos in gorgeous HD with no ads.
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
2026 ESC Guidelines for the management of heart failure academic.oup.com/eurheartj/ar... Important knowledge gap on hyperkalemia - No specific recommendations for the use of potassium binders are included in the guideline at current time, due to insufficient evidence for clinical benefit.
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
😂
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
I don’t have a proper “academic” curated zoom background so seeing how the public library bookshelf background works..
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Just got this exact question from a patient yesterday! Wanting to try it to help with workouts
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Christos Argyropoulos MD, PhD, FASN 🇺🇸 0kale/acc @christosargyrop.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Didn't work bsky.app/profile/rnfl...
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
So what’s the top line summary?
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
haysamrady @sodatroubles.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Noninvasive optical coherence tomography biomarker for Alport syndrome, COL4-related focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, and COL4 variant interpretation #nephsky #nephrology www.kidney-international.org/article/S008...
kidney-international.org
Noninvasive optical coherence tomography biomarker for Alport syndrome, COL4-related focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, and COL4 variant interpretation
Alport syndrome (AS) is a hereditary glomerulopathy often associated with ocular abnormalities, yet structural retinal biomarkers remain underutilized in nephrology. Here, we evaluated the Temporal Th...
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Swapnil Hiremath 🍁🇨🇦 @hswapnil.medsky.social · 20/07/2026
a young teenager with hypertension, case studies from @nejm.org enough info in table 1 to make a diagnosis! www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
lab values showing
hypokalemia
elevated ESR/CRP
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Nice
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
It may be a little convoluted but i think it helps people conceptualize that the kidney and heart health are quite interconnected—harder for non-nephrologists to practice renalism. For burnt out docs probably not as helpful, but the younger generation are learning; starting to hear the term used…
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Swapnil Hiremath 🍁🇨🇦 @hswapnil.medsky.social · 10/07/2026
Another negative early AKI RCT jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... @jaykoyner.bsky.social et al in @jamanetworkopen.com
jamanetwork.com
Early Nephrology Consult and Acute Kidney Injury in Hospitalized Patients
This randomized clinical trial assesses whether a structured early nephrology consultation triggered by a machine-learning acute kidney injury (AKI) risk score in patients at high risk for AKI improve...
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Swapnil Hiremath 🍁🇨🇦 @hswapnil.medsky.social · 03/07/2026
As ridiculous as CKD staging is, we have nothing on this thing of utter beauty www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/... We are all stage A HF! Flozinate everyone. GDMT on the drinking water. #medsky #cardiosky /s
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
kireports.bsky.social @kireports.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
German Clinical Practice #Guideline on #Microhematuria in #Children and #Young #Adults: Evaluating Early Detection of Kidney Disease doi.org/10.1016/j.ekir.2026.106495 #KIRGuidelines
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
whoa interesting...Betel nut chewing induces 24(OH)ase expression and decreased serum calcitriol? academic.oup.com/jcem/article...
academic.oup.com
Vitamin D Metabolism in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells Is Influenced by Chewing “Betel Nut” (Areca catechu) and Vitamin D Status
Abstract. Context: Vitamin D deficiency, common in South Asians, is a risk factor for metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and ischemic heart disease. Vita
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
kireports.bsky.social @kireports.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Genetic #Screening of Patients With Inherited #FanconiSyndrome #VisualAbstract by Denisse Arellano www.kireports.org/article/S2468-024…
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Swapnil Hiremath 🍁🇨🇦 @hswapnil.medsky.social · 05/06/2026
Crazy happenings at the #ADA26 Cops show up, snatch papers and shove scientists out www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo...
medpagetoday.com
Video: Police Tussle With Diabetes Experts at ADA Meeting
Researchers told they could no longer attend the annual scientific sessions
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Swapnil Hiremath 🍁🇨🇦 @hswapnil.medsky.social · 03/06/2026
Huge effect of mTOR inhibition (sirolimus, everolimus?) in tuberous sclerosis academic.oup.com/ckj/article/... in @ckj-era.bsky.social Not an RCT of course - rare disease and all that! Via @dguerrot.bsky.social on LI #NephSky
academic.oup.com
Real-world management of tuberous sclerosis complex–associated renal angiomyolipomas: the impact of mTOR inhibitors
ABSTRACTBackground. Renal angiomyolipomas (AMLs) drive substantial morbidity in tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) through haemorrhage and repeated invasive
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Important to celebrate the small wins! An outstanding former Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine mentee is applying to nephrology!
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
History’s cool www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/s...
nytimes.com
Archaeologists Find Egyptian Mummy Buried With the ‘Iliad’
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
😂
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Interesting paper - Factors Associated With Discussing High Blood Pressure Readings in Clinical Notes. Naturally, nephrology, transplant, internal med are discussing the most (it's part of the job). ID, endocrine, sports medicine and GI > than cardiology? pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39661402/
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
American Journal of Kidney Diseases @ajkd.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Impact of Smartphone-Enabled Home Urinary Albumin-to-Creatinine Ratio Testing on Albuminuria Screening and Management bit.ly/4pMQekv (OPEN ACCESS) @alexchangmd.bsky.social
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
A short Bluetorial on plots of NIH application success rates as a function of percentile. 1/20
media.tenor.com
a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Maybe they’ll start pushing electric cars…
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Joseph Flynn, MD @jostflynnmd.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
Clinical course of proteinuria due to cubilin variants: a large multicenter pediatric cohort @ped-neph.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Clinical course of proteinuria due to cubilin variants: a large multicenter pediatric cohort - Pediatric Nephrology
Introduction We aimed to evaluate the clinical and genetic characteristics and clinical course of children with persistent proteinuria associated with CUBN variants. Methods Forty-eight children with ...
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Use of auto BP devices is rec'd by guidelines but many still measure BP manually. In this preprint, we categorize BP device based on terminal digit (manual BP results in even # terminal digits). Manual BP ~6mmHg lower and associated with 1.16x stroke risk vs automated www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
medRxivpreprint @medrxivpreprint.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Underestimation of Blood Pressure and Stroke Risk by Manual Blood Pressure Measurement www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Swapnil Hiremath 🍁🇨🇦 @hswapnil.medsky.social · 27/02/2026
Interesting POV on new therapies in glomerular diseases in NDT #Free academic.oup.com/ndt/article/... What Jon Barratt calls palliative, others call supportive, these call ‘foundational’. RASi and Flozins ✅evidence for BP is opinion I think? But cost issues are huge, as shown here.
Figure 1:The four established pillars supporting the diagnosis and management of CKD in glomerulonephritis: kidney histology, optimal blood pressure control, RAS blockade, and SGLT2 inhibition. These form the foundation of current best practice, highlighting the challenge for emerging therapies to integrate into this already optimized framework while still demonstrating additional benefit. The new treatment options for IgA nephropathy include targeting APRIL, BAFF, complement, and CD38, as well as combined AT1 and endothelin receptor inhibitors, and extended-release intestinal budesonide. Illustration created with BioRender and adapted from Li et al., 2025 [49].annual treatment costs of new therapies vary by region, with sparsentan ranging from €56 640 in Germany to $118 800 in the USA [43, 44], slow-release budesonide from €126 655 to $174,00 0 [45], and Iptacopan from €460 510 to $550 377 [45]. Anti-APRIL and anti-BAFF therapies are expected to be in the range of €100 000–150 000 or $100 000–150 000 per patient per year [46]. It is estimated that ~400 000 patients with IgA nephropathy live in the EU and the USA combined, and up to 50% of them may be eligible to receive these new therapies [47, 48].

Given these expenses, the revenue generated by the new specific therapies should be sufficient to support outcome studies conducted on a background of up-to-date therapies, particularly SGLT2 inhibition, as outlined before. At the same time, this is also a call to action for all nephrologists managing patients with glomerular diseases: novel and expensive therapies should not be prescribed uncritically before ensuring that the four fundamental pillars of supportive care are fully in place for at least several months, as demonstrated in the STOP-IgA trial [39].
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
If no nonimmunosuppressive therapies for IgA are “palliative” then we all have patients who have been on “hospice” for many years and likely discharged from hospice…
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Jeff Miner @jeffminerphd.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Glomerular basement membrane (GBM) structural integrity dictates trans-tissu... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Really proud of this Cell Reports paper showing that the potentially pathogenic laminin alpha2 in the Alport GBM comes not from glomerular cells, but from the bloodstream.
sciencedirect.com
Glomerular basement membrane structural integrity dictates trans-tissue deposition of laminin in the kidney
Basement membranes (BMs) are specialized extracellular matrices (ECMs) essential for tissue structure and function. In non-vertebrates, ECM components…
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Thanks Gates, totally agree very important for us to discuss hygiene and not easy for many to talk about!
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
SGLTi question - is it important to consider circumcision status for males? pt mentioned difficulties retracting foreskin due (sugary urine must have some impact) resulting in discontinuation…and happened to notice another pt had a similar problem @askrenal.bsky.social
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Jordy Cohen @jordybc.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Excited to share our research letter published today in JAMA on the new Apple Watch Hypertension Notification Feature! jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... 1/n
jamanetwork.com
Smartwatch and Hypertension Notification
This cross-sectional study assesses the potential impact of a smartwatch hypertension notification feature for US adults who have not been diagnosed with hypertension.
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
American Journal of Hypertension @amjhypertension.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
#WeekendReads from the Advance articles section Trends in Initial Combination Antihypertensive Therapy in a US Health System 🔗 academic.oup.com/ajh/advance-... 🔒
academic.oup.com
Trends in Initial Combination Antihypertensive Therapy in a US Health System
AbstractBackground. Initial combination therapy has been recommended for patients with high blood pressure (BP). We evaluated annual trends in initial comb
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
American Journal of Kidney Diseases @ajkd.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Impact of Smartphone-Enabled Home Urinary Albumin-to-Creatinine Ratio Testing on Albuminuria Screening and Management bit.ly/4pMQekv (OPEN ACCESS) @alexchangmd.bsky.social
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Wow so confusing, gotta use cutoffs 25% lower for lc-ms/ms measured aldosterone
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Josh Leisring @joshleisring.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
I think there could be more clarity in how many labs report results. i.e what threshold should be considered a suppressed renin, positive screen, etc. The variety of different assays/units remains a major source of confusion. Most clinicians won't be aware of Table 5 from the Endo society guideline
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Josh Leisring @joshleisring.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
For example, my institution's lab historically reported renin/aldo with these reference ranges. Cases of overt PA could be interpreted as normal. But results are now reported with guidance on interpretation with the relevant cutoffs from our lab's assays.
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
You’re awesome! Harder for those already on 3-5 BP meds by the time they get to us. Trying to figure out how to push this more for the less attentive/knowledgeable providers
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
This is nice thank you for sharing!
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
As guidelines rec more Aldo/renin testing in htn, wondering whats labs role to ensure/capture details on relevant factors (timing, Na restriction, meds, KP)? Should labs rec pts test in more standardized conditions, log key details or just do it-clinicians duty to sort out? @askrenal.bsky.social
https://www.endocrine.org/clinical-practice-guidelines/primary-aldosteronism-2
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Stephen P Juraschek, MD, PhD, FAHA, AHSCP-CHS @spjuraschek.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Excited to share our thoughts on the Apple Watch Hypertension alert! @jordybc.bsky.social @deanpicone.bsky.social @alta-schutte.bsky.social Apple Watch for Hypertension Screening | Hypertension www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/...
ahajournals.org
Apple Watch for Hypertension Screening | Hypertension
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Pilot phase PREvention of CardIovascular and DiabEtic kidNey disease in Type 2 Diabetes (PRECIDENTD) trial. Monotherapy vs. dual therapy fill rates were 87% vs. 68% overall (P=0.004) at 10months. Of those filling meds, 22% in monotherapy, 49% in dual therapy d/c'ed pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41456635/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Dual versus monotherapy with SGLT2 inhibitor and GLP-1 receptor agonist:PRECIDENTD pragmatic randomized trial - PubMed
ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05390892, https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05390892.
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Wow congratulations Michelle!
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
Lars Mølgaard Saxhaug @load-dependent.eurosky.social · 08/01/2026
I do wonder how much of the effect may be due to initiation of MRA vs higher potassium in itself. #cardiosky #emimcc
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Random Mention of beef tallow in this short “guideline” is about all you need to know about its seriousness
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Alex Chang, MD @alexchangmd.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
I agree. My license elapsed for it due to my low use of it. I find it distasteful to instead spend time fixing the AIs note after the fact
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Reposted by Alex Chang, MD
American Journal of Hypertension @amjhypertension.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
Impact of Cost-Sharing on Self-Measured Blood Pressure: Cost and Prescription Abandonment for Home BP Monitors in a Large FQHC academic.oup.com/ajh/article-...
academic.oup.com
Impact of Cost-Sharing on Self-Measured Blood Pressure: Cost and Prescription Abandonment for Home BP Monitors in a Large FQHC
AbstractBACKGROUND. Self-measured blood pressure is an important tool for diagnosing and controlling hypertension. Current insurance coverage for home bloo
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