[Pulmonary hemorrhage and rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis ("pulmonary-renal" syndrome)]

The association lung hemorrhages and crescentic glomerulonephritis caracterises severe clinical disorders where specific diagnosis is required for initiating the apropriate therapy. Goodpasture's syndrome and systemic vasculitis, mainly Wegener's granulomatosis, are the most frequent etiologies of these syndromes. The detection of circulating auto-antibodies directed against glomerular basement membrane in Goodpasture's syndrome, or against neutrophil cytoplasmic constituents in Wegener's granulomatosis, provides at the present time, helpful specific diagnostic tests making these disorders more readily identifiable.