BACKGROUND The main purpose of this study was to examine histopathological changes seen in renal biopsies from patients with Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) with varying degrees of renal involvement and to study possible correlations between the morphological variables and the severity of the disease. METHODS Ninety-four patients with WG and active renal disease were included in this retrospect...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Pauci-immune necrotizing and crescentic glomerulonephritis (PNCGN) superimposed on diabetic glomerulosclerosis (DGS) is a rare occurrence. Only limited data on this dual glomerulopathy are available. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS Twenty-three cases of PNCGN superimposed on DGS were identified from the archives of the Renal Pathology Laboratory of Colu...

BACKGROUND Renal biopsies play an important role in the diagnosis, management and prognosis of patients with lupus nephritis (LN). OBJECTIVES To determine the correlation between the pathological features of LN and the demographic, clinical and laboratory parameters. PATIENTS AND METHODS This retrospective study was conducted from 2008 to 2014 on all consecutive cases of biopsy-proven LN at...

Assumpta Serra, MD, Servicio de Nefrologia, Hospital ‘Germans Trias i Pujol’, Carretera del Canyet s/n, E-08916 Badalona (Spain) Sir, Urinary red blood cell morphology has been reported to be useful in discriminating renal from nonrenal causes of hematuria. In renal disease, dysmorphic blood cells are detected in urine, whereas in nonrenal hematuria the morphology is normal [1,2]. The estimated...

BACKGROUND IgA nephropathy is an immune-complex glomerulopathy that can result in capillary or extra-capillary proliferation. Previous attempts to correlate specific histological findings including cellular crescents or endocapillary proliferation, with clinical outcomes, have produced conflicting results. METHODS We conducted a prospective open-labelled trial of 12 patients with crescentic, ...

BACKGROUND Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) have been implicated to play important roles in a number of pathological processes such as inflammation. In human glomeruli, the mesangial matrix turnover is controlled by a dynamic equilibrium between synthesis and degradation to which metalloproteinases are known to contribute. Metalloproteinase-11 (MMP-11) was originally discovered as a gene whose ...

BACKGROUND A number of studies have demonstrated a pathological role for interleukin-1 (IL-1) in experimental models of glomerulonephritis, but the cellular pattern of renal IL-1 production remains poorly characterized. The aim of this study, therefore, was to identify the cell types expressing IL-1 in normal and diseased rat kidney. METHODS Renal IL-1 beta expression was examined in normal r...

This study aimed to identify clinical and histologic prognostic indicators of renal outcome in patients with ANCA-associated vasculitis and severe renal involvement (serum creatinine >500 micromol/L). One hundred patients who were enrolled in an international, randomized, clinical trial to compare plasma exchange with intravenous methylprednisolone as an additional initial treatment were analyz...