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Richard Sterns, M.D.

Nephrologist

Board Certifications

  • 1974, Internal Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine

  • 1978, Nephrology, American Board of Internal Medicine

Fellowships

  • 07/01/1975-06/01/1978, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Residencies

  • 07/01/1973-06/01/1975, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

  • 01/01/1971-01/01/1973, San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center

Medical Education

  • 1971, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

For 40 years, I have been interested in  the treatment of severe hyponatremia.  In 1986, I introduced the term, “Osmotic Demyelination Syndrome” to describe  neurological complications of excessively rapid correction of chronic hyponatremia. In the years that followed, my co-workers and I tried to define correction rates that are fast enough to be beneficial without causing harm.

 

More recently,  we pioneered strategies to maintain an appropriate rate of correction with the combined use of desmopressin and hypertonic saline.  On this website you will find a calculator that I designed collaboratively with my son, Adam Sterns; we hope clinicians will find it helpful when managing patients with abnormal serum sodium concentrations.  

Selected Publications

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Sterns RH, Riggs JE, Schochet Jr SS. Osmotic demyelination syndrome following correction of hyponatremia. New England Journal of Medicine. 1986 Jun 12;314(24):1535-42.

 

Sterns RH. Severe symptomatic hyponatremia: treatment and outcome: a study of 64 cases. Annals of Internal Medicine. 1987 Nov 1;107(5):656-64.

 

Sterns RH, Cappuccio JD, Silver SM, Cohen EP. Neurologic sequelae after treatment of severe hyponatremia: a multicenter perspective. Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 1994 Feb 1;4(8):1522-30.

 

Sterns RH, Silver SM. Salt and water: read the package insert. Qjm. 2003 Aug 1;96(8):549-52.

 

Perianayagam A, Sterns RH, Silver SM, Grieff M, Mayo R, Hix J, Kouides R. DDAVP is effective in preventing and reversing inadvertent overcorrection of hyponatremia. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 2008 Mar 1;3(2):331-6.

 

Sterns RH, Nigwekar SU, Hix JK. The treatment of hyponatremia. In Seminars in nephrology 2009 May 1 (Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 282-299). WB Saunders.

 

Sterns RH, Hix JK, Silver S. Treating profound hyponatremia: a strategy for controlled correction. American journal of kidney diseases. 2010 Oct 1;56(4):774-9.

 

Sood L, Sterns RH, Hix JK, Silver SM, Chen L. Hypertonic saline and desmopressin: a simple strategy for safe correction of severe hyponatremia. American Journal of Kidney Diseases. 2013 Apr 1;61(4):571-8.

 

Sterns RH, Hix JK, Silver SM. Management of hyponatremia in the ICU. Chest. 2013 Aug 1;144(2):672-9.

 

Verbalis JG, Goldsmith SR, Greenberg A, Korzelius C, Schrier RW, Sterns RH, Thompson CJ. Diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment of hyponatremia: expert panel recommendations. The American journal of medicine. 2013 Oct 1;126(10):S1-42.

 

Sterns RH. Disorders of plasma sodium—causes, consequences, and correction. New England Journal of Medicine. 2015 Jan 1;372(1):55-65.

 

Sterns RH. Formulas for fixing serum sodium: curb your enthusiasm. Clinical Kidney Journal. 2016 Aug 1;9(4):527-9.

 

Sterns RH. Treatment of severe hyponatremia. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 2018 Apr 6;13(4):641-9.

 

Portales-Castillo I, Sterns RH, Bress J, Proano RA. Where do the salt and water go? A case of profound hyponatremia. American Journal of Kidney Diseases. 2018 Dec 1;72(6):885-9.

 

Dong Y, Silver SM, Sterns RH. Estimating urine volume from the urine creatinine concentration. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation. 2021 Nov 25.

 

Tandukar S, Sterns RH, Rondon-Berrios H. Osmotic demyelination syndrome following correction of hyponatremia by≤ 10 mEq/L per day. Kidney360. 2021 Sep 9;2(9):1415.

 

Rondon-Berrios H, Sterns RH. Hypertonic saline for hyponatremia: meeting goals and avoiding harm. American Journal of Kidney Diseases. 2022 Jun 1;79(6):890-6.

 

Sterns RH, Sterns AM. Predicting Responses to Hypertonic Saline: Edelman’s Evidence, Elementary Algebra, and Eponyms. Kidney360. 2023

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