[Lupus nephritis--clinical and morfological correlation]

During the last five years at our Department renal biopsy was carried out in 41 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. On the basis of the pathologic findings glomerular changes were classified as follows: minimal in 5 patients; mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis in 11; focal and segmental proliferative glomerulonephritis in 5; diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis in 15; membranous glomerulonephritis in 3, and diffuse sclerosing glomerulo-nephritis in 2 cases. Morphological changes of renal biopsy did not correlate with the degree of deterioration of glomerular function. Twenty seven patients were regularly followed-up. Most of them had diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis (11) and mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis (7). This is a larger number than in other authors' series. The clinical manifestation of lupus nephritis was: nephrotic syndrome (19 patients); minimal urinary abnormalities (6); rapidly progressive renal failure (1), and acute nephrotic syndrome (1). The majority of patients had high blood pressure (23). Their immunosuppressive therapy was ordered according to renal histologic lesions and severity of extrarenal manifestations. Clinical remission was achieved in 22 patients, but 2 died due to extrarenal complications.