[Idiopathic nephrotic syndrome and diabetes mellitus (author's transl)]

The paper reports on an adolescent aged 19 1/2 years, in whom a relapse of the idiopathic nephrotic syndrome occurred after a 6 years' remission, when diabetes mellitus had become manifest about 6 months before. Histologically, minimal-changes lesions were found in the kidney at the beginning and also 2 1/2 years after manifestation of the diabetes mellitus; these lesions were of the same type as those which are characteristic for the idiopathic nephrotic syndrome in children. The renal changes in children and adolescents suffering from diabetes mellitus with simultaneous or concurrent onset of nephrotic syndrome, are discussed and contrasted with the lesions observed in adult diabetes. Attention is drawn in this paper to similarity in nature and direction of the biochemical changes of the glomerular basement membrane in the idiopathic nephrotic syndrome and in diabetic nephropathy, as a possible common pathogenetic factor for the occurrence of a marked proteinuria.