Kidney Disease and Hypertension Care

Our nephrologists work to diagnose and treat the most complex kidney diseases.

Kidney Disease and Hypertension Care

Our nephrologists work to diagnose and treat the most complex kidney diseases.

State-of-the-art Diagnosis and Care for Kidney Disease

Diseases of the kidney and urinary tract can be caused by diabetes, high blood pressure, genetic kidney disease, lupus nephritis, infections such as HIV or hepatitis, prescription drugs, cancer and more.

Our nephrologists, doctors who specialize in kidney diseases, provide state-of-the-art diagnosis and comprehensive care for all types of kidney conditions. We give you access to a network of specialty clinics and centers that offer additional support services, patient education and personalized treatment options. If you need a kidney transplant, your care will be managed by our highly experienced and renowned transplant team.

We bring together clinical nephrologists, transplant nephrologists, research nephrologists and advanced practice providers to give you complete care for your kidney disease and help you lead a full and active life.

Conditions We Treat

  • Abnormal creatinine
  • Abnormal glomerular filtration rate
  • Acid-base disorders (acidosis, alkalosis)
  • Acute kidney injury
  • Alport syndrome
  • Anemia due to chronic kidney disease
  • Bloody urine (hematuria)
  • Chronic kidney disease
  • Chronic kidney disease due to obstructive uropathy
  • Cystic kidney disease (including polycystic kidney disease)
  • Diabetic kidney disease
  • Drug-induced kidney injury or disease
  • Electrolyte abnormalities (including disorders of sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium)
  • End-stage renal disease
  • Fabry disease
  • Fanconi syndrome
  • Fluid retention (edema, anasarca)
  • Foamy urine
  • Genetic kidney disease
  • Glomerulonephritis (membranous, focal-segmental, membranoproliferative, IgA, lupus nephritis)
  • Glomerulosclerosis
  • Hereditary kidney disease
  • High blood pressure (primary and secondary hypertension)
  • Hypertension (with or without renal disease)
  • Interstitial kidney disease and lupus nephritis
  • Kidney disease and high blood pressure in pregnancy
  • Kidney disease secondary to cancer or cancer treatments
  • Kidney stones (nephrolithiasis)
  • Nephrotic syndrome
  • Polycystic kidney disease
  • Protein in the urine (proteinuria and albuminuria)
  • Renal, electrolyte and acid-based disorders
  • Thin basement membrane disease
  • Tubulointerstitial disease
  • Vitamin D abnormalities

Treatments We Offer

  • Conservative management of advanced chronic kidney disease (for patients not wanting dialysis)
  • Dialysis treatments, including:
    • Home hemodialysis
    • In-center hemodialysis
    • Peritoneal dialysis, including urgent-start peritoneal dialysis
  • Diet and behavioral modifications
  • Hemodialysis
  • Kidney transplant evaluations and management
  • Pharmacotherapy
    • Immune modifying agents for certain types of nephritis
    • Immunosuppressive treatment in nephritis and transplantation
    • Medication management of all kidney conditions
  • Plasmapheresis and plasma exchange

Our Subspecialty Clinics

 

HC2 Clinic

The nephrology clinic provides highly specialized care for many indigent patients in Los Angeles County who have all aspects of kidney diseases and kidney stones.

 

Hypertension Clinic

Our nephrologists at the USC Hypertension Clinic specialize in diagnosing all forms of secondary hypertension, including renovascular hypertension, hyperaldosteronism and other mineralocorticoid excess syndromes, and pheochromocytoma. They also specialize in the management of resistant hypertension and the diagnosis and treatment of orthostatic hypotension. If you have essential or primary hypertension, your treatment may require many classes of antihypertensive medications and care options. Our nephrologists carefully manage the use of these treatment therapies to provide you with optimal management and prevent drug interactions or negative side effects. Recognizing the complexity of many of these cases, our nephrologists collaborate closely with a group of prominent Keck Medicine vascular surgeons and cardiologists.

 

Kidney Transplant Clinics

Our clinics provide postoperative care and management to kidney transplant patients. The kidney transplant clinics are an integral part of a collaborative, multidisciplinary solid organ transplant institute at USC, which provides high-volume, outstanding transplant patient care and results while integrating clinical, translational outcomes and basic science research across all solid organ transplants.

Our clinics:

  • Living Kidney Donor Clinic: Evaluate potential kidney donors
  • Pre–Kidney Transplant Clinic: Evaluate potential kidney transplant recipients
  • Post–Kidney Transplant Clinic: Manage post–kidney transplant recipients

 

Polycystic Kidney Disease Clinic

The USC Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) Clinic manages a growing population of PKD patients. The mission of our clinic is to slow progression of disease, minimize complications and optimize quality of life by providing patient-centered, multidisciplinary, comprehensive, cutting-edge care and education to all patients with PKD, from your first symptoms to preparation for kidney replacement therapy.

The USC/UKRO Kidney Research Center (KRC)

The USC/UKRO Kidney Research Center (KRC) was named in September 2012 with a gift pledge of $3.5 million from the University Kidney Research Organization (UKRO), a Los Angelesbased philanthropic group. Remodeling of the top two stories of the Mudd Memorial Research Building occurred in 2015 through support from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, thereby creating the 5,000+ square feet of research and office space comprising the KRC, which opened in September 2015. The onboarding of the new KRC Director, Kenneth R. Hallows, MD, PhD, who is an internationally recognized nephrology physician-scientist, brought the center into operation. Dr. Zhongwei Li received a $2.475 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award, which supports unusually innovative research from early career investigators. Dr. Li will use the award to advance his progress toward generating a synthetic kidney for patients in need of transplants. Since then, we have assembled a growing team of dedicated researchers, physician scientists and administrative staff. Additionally, Dr. Eugene Lin recently received an NIH R01 award to elucidate the mechanisms of racial and ethnic disparities in dialysis quality. 

 

Mission 

The mission of the KRC is to: 1) conduct innovative bench, translational and clinical research aimed at elucidating the causes of and better treatments and cures for various forms of kidney disease, thus making positive impacts on the lives of those affected by kidney disease; 2) establish ongoing sources of revenue to support kidney research at the KRC and promote larger-scale collaborations both within the Keck Medicine of USC community and throughout the United States and world; and 3) provide resources to train and educate future researchers and physicians in the fields of nephrology and hypertension. 

  

Vision 

KRC’s vision is to become a leading center for basic, translational and clinical research into kidney diseases in the U.S. that significantly contributes to advances that improve the health of people living with kidney disease. 

Visit their website for more information.  

Clinical Trials

Find an open trial
2500+

We have performed over 2,500 kidney transplants

9

We have 9 different specialty kidney treatment clinics

37 m

The CDC estimates 37 million Americans have kidney diseases

2012

The year our USC/UKRO Kidney Research Center was founded

Driving Improvements in Patient Care and Outcomes

Our physicians are leading researchers in the field of kidney disease, driving improvements in patient care, safety and outcomes.

You will always have an advanced practice provider, such as a physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner, as a part of your care team.

Our research team is working on a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant-funded project to create a synthetic kidney.

We provide the most advanced treatment therapies for a full range of conditions, including renal disease, hypertension and renal failure.

We have earned Center of Excellence designations for kidney transplantation from Aetna, Anthem, Cigna LifeSOURCE, Interlink and Optum.

Our USC PKD Clinic is designated as a Partner Clinic in the PKD Foundation’s Centers of Excellence program.

World-class Leadership

Our internationally renowned physicians and clinicians are dedicated to delivering high-quality patient care. We are leaders in cutting-edge treatments, breakthrough research and exceptional outcomes.

Kenneth Raymond Hallows, MD, PhD

Division Chief

Arshia Ghaffari, DO

Clinic Director

Arshia Ghaffari, DO

Accepting new patients
Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine
Specialties
Nephrology, Polycystic Kidney Disease
Division Chief of Nephrology, Professor of Medicine
Specialties
Nephrology, Polycystic Kidney Disease
Medical Director of Kidney Transplant
Specialties
Nephrology, Transplant Nephrology, Kidney Transplant Surgery
Specialties
Internal Medicine, Nephrology, Polycystic Kidney Disease
Professor of Clinical Medicine
Specialties
Nephrology, Internal Medicine
Specialties
Internal Medicine, Nephrology, Polycystic Kidney Disease
Specialties
Nephrology, Transplant Nephrology

Hiu Shan, MD

Accepting new patients
Specialties
Nephrology, Internal Medicine, Polycystic Kidney Disease
Specialties
Nephrology, Transplant Nephrology
Associate Professor of Medicine
Specialties
Nephrology, Transplant Nephrology, Polycystic Kidney Disease

Fadi Tohme, MD

Accepting new patients
Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine
Specialties
Nephrology, Internal Medicine

Santhi Voora, MD

Accepting new patients
Specialties
Nephrology, Transplant Nephrology

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