Blood pressure, proteinuria and nephropathy in Fabry disease

Fabry disease is an X-linked disorder leading to abnormal accumulation of glycosphingolipids with multisystem involvement, including cardiac, renal, dermatologic and neurologic manifestations. Fabry nephropathy, specifically proteinuria and progressive chronic kidney disease, have taken center stage over the past decade, defining disease outcomes as well as mortality associated with Fabry disease. Systemic blood pressure among patients with Fabry disease is relatively low, compared to other forms of proteinuric chronic kidney disease.

This review is based on a systematic survey of recent publications that describe the diagnosis and treatment of Fabry nephropathy in adults.

A high percentage of patients with Fabry disease have been shown to have proteinuria, and a small but significant percentage of Fabry patients have overt hypertension. Recent efforts have focused on the use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ACEIs/ARBs) in addition to enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) for treatment of Fabry nephropathy. The proven beneficial effects of ACEI/ARBs for more common forms of proteinuric kidney disease have been extrapolated to the treatment of Fabry nephropathy. The overall treatment goal with ACEIs/ARBs, in combination with ERT, is reduction of urinary protein excretion to less than 500 mg/day, and stabilization of the decline of kidney function to -1 ml/min/1.73 m(2)/year. ERT alone, in the absence of ACEIs/ARBs does not decrease proteinuria in Fabry patients. We present the prevalence of proteinuria, kidney disease and hypertension in Fabry disease and discuss treatment goals for the treatment of this unusual form of proteinuric kidney disease.

There are some practical challenges to the use of standard antiproteinuric therapy in Fabry disease that need to be addressed to optimize patient outcome, with the expectation that kidney function can be preserved with the combination of ERT and ACEI/ARB therapy.