[Effects of cyclophosphamide on the length of remission in patients suffering from glomerulonephritis with nephrotic syndrome]

Abstract

The authors performed retrospective evaluation of recurrence rate and the length of nephrotic syndrome (NS) remission in 21 patients with chronic glomerulonephritis (GN), who suffered from a first NS attack, cured by corticosteroid (CS) monotherapy; 16 patients had mesangioproliferative GN, 1--mesangiocapillary GN, 1--membranous GN, 3 patients did not undergo biopsy. After obtaining steroid remission of NS, 11 patients (Group I) continued receiving CS in maintaining doses during the next 6 7 +/- 1.0 months; the other 10 patients (Group II) received maintaining doses of CS during the next 5.5 +/- 0.5 months plus cyclophosphamide (CFA) daily or as pulse therapy during 19.7 +/- 3.5 months. There was almost a double increase of mean remission length in Group II vs. Group I (47.6 +/- 9.8 and 25.3 +/- 6.4 months, respectively). There was only one case of a NS relapse in Group II vs. 7 in Group I, which means that the risk of a NS relapse was 7.7 times higher in patients receiving only CS vs. patients on combination of CS and CFA, p = 0. 004. The results of this small retrospective study suggest that administration of CFA as supporting therapy after obtaining steroid remission of NS allows its substantial prolongation in patients with chronic GN.