Acute post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis with acute kidney injury in nephrotic syndrome with the glomerular deposition of nephritis-associated plasmin receptor antigen

Clinical characteristics of acute glomerulonephritis with presentation of nephrotic syndrome at onset in children

BACKGROUND

Acute glomerulonephritis (AGN) is a common disease in children, which places a huge burden on developing countries. The prognosis of it may not always be good. However, the clinical characteristics of AGN with nephrotic syndrome (NS) at onset have not been fully clarified.

METHODS

One hundred and thirteen cases were analyzed retrospectively. Clinical data, pathological results and prognosis between AGN with NS (AGN-NS) and AGN without NS (AGN-no-NS) were compared.

RESULTS

Twenty (17.7%) of 113 patients were AGN-NS. The patients with AGN-NS were more likely to have hypertension (55.0% vs. 25.8%) and acute kidney injury (AKI) (50.0% vs. 17.2%). AKI was significantly related to the manifestation of AGN-NS in children (OR = 3.812, P = 0.040). Compared with the AGN-no-NS, the immunosuppressive treatments were more common in AGN-NS. A more severe pathological grade was significantly related to lower C3 fraction, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), and AKI, but not to the performance of AGN-NS. There was no difference in prognosis between the two groups.

CONCLUSIONS

AKI was significantly associated with AGN-NS. The prognosis of AGN-NS and AGN-no-NS in our study was almost good. Given the fact that AGN-NS patients are more likely to use immunosuppressive therapy, the long-term outcome of AGN-NS warrants further research.

Castleman disease mimicking systemic lupus erythematosus: A case report

RATIONALE

Castleman disease (CD) is a nonclonal lymphoproliferative disorder sometimes manifested systemic inflammatory symptoms. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease characterized with multi-system involvement as well as broad spectrum of serum autoantibodies. When these two conditions happened to have similar clinical spectrum features, the confusion with each other occurred.

PATIENT CONCERNS

A 46-year-old man suffered from chronic fever, nephrotic syndrome, acute kidney injury, anemia, thrombocytopenia and serositis, as well as hypocomplementemia and negative anti-nuclear antibody.

DIAGNOSES

Meeting the classification criteria for SLE, the patient was diagnosed as SLE at first. The renal biopsy showed that he had endocapillary proliferative glomerulonephritis with negative immunofluorescence. Finally, he was diagnosed with CD after lymph nodes biopsy.

INTERVENTIONS

The patient was treated with oral prednisone (50 mg daily) but got poor response. After being proved to have CD, he was treated with CHOP chemotherapy.

OUTCOMES

His condition was controlled by CHOP chemotherapy. After six course of chemotherapy, the proteinuria disappeared.

LESSONS

If patients, even qualified by classification criteria of SLE, had negative autoantibody or unsatisfied response to the standard treatment, the original diagnosis should be suspected. The biopsy may be help to identify the final criminals, such as CD.