[Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody-associated rapid progressive glomerulonephritis complicated with both...

We report two patients with scleroderma, 73-year-old female and 67-year-old female, who developed anti neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody (ANCA) associated rapid progressive glomerulonephritis (RPGN). Both patients have had a long history of scleroderma (23 and 14 years, respectively) when ANCA-associated glomerulonephritis occurred. In the first patient, scleroderma was localized in both fingers. She has been followed-up as CREST syndrome rather than systemic sclerosis. The complaints on admission were leg edema and left chest pain in the first patient, and a pyrexia and dyspnea in the second patient. Both patients showed pulmonary manifestation (pleural effusion in the first patient, interstitial pneumonia and alveolar hemorrhage in the second patient, respectively) and rapid progressive glomerulonephritis. Both patients died in spite of corticosteroid therapy. Autopsy findings in the second patient demonstrated crescentic glomerulonephritis and alveolar hemorrhage. Our cases demonstrated that MPO-ANCA associated glomerulonephritis could be associated with limited scleroderma as well as systemic scleroderma. In these condition, the prognosis will be poor if scleroderma seemed to be stable.