[Pregnancy in patients with chronic glomerulonephritis]

This study was carried out to clarify the effect of pregnancy on chronic glomerulonephritis (CGN). Fifteen patients with CGN diagnosed by renal biopsy were studied throughout 17 pregnancies. The following criteria were adopted: 1) Creatinine clearance (Ccr) over 70 ml/min and serum creatinine (s-Cr) 1.2 mg/dl or less. 2) Blood pressure lower than 140/90 mmHg when not receiving any medicine. 3) No evidence of active progress of nephropathy. In two patients excluded from the criteria, renal function was adversely affected, but there was no evidence that pregnancy affected the natural course of the underlying renal disease. In the patients to which the criteria were applied, the outcome of pregnancy and renal function were good. In conclusion, we recognized that there was no relationship between the body weight of the newborn and maternal serum albumin but that there was a significant correlation between serum uric acid and body weight (r = -0.67). These results show that serum uric acid is a useful indicator of placental dysfunction and fetal growth. In the patients with preeclampsia, the serum uric acid concentration was higher than in the CGN group (8.95 +/- 2.58 mg/dl vs 5.88 +/- 1.49 mg/dl: Scheffe method p less than 0.001). There was no significant difference between the CGN and normal control (5.88 +/- 1.49 mg/dl vs 4.51 +/- 0.68: Scheffe method p less than 0.1). Uric acid serves to distinguish CGN and preeclampsia.