De novo immunotactoid glomerulopathy of the renal allograft: possible association with cytomegalovirus infection

Abstract

A 59-year-old man with end-stage renal failure from systemic vasculitis developed de novo immunotactoid glomerulopathy of the renal allograft, with clinical evidence of hematuria, proteinuria, and acute renal failure 6 weeks after cadaveric renal transplantation. The morphologic lesion of immunotactoid glomerulopathy and the clinical renal disease resolved during the following 2 weeks. The disease had not recurred in the subsequent 20 months of posttransplant follow-up. During the same period, the patient also developed systemic cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection with viremia, acute hepatitis, and bone marrow suppression. The clinical manifestations of CMV illness and the renal disease have subsided following the withdrawal of immunosuppressive agents and simultaneous treatment with ganciclovir. Although there is no direct proof that CMV infection was responsible for the development of immunotactoid glomerulopathy, the circumstantial evidence in this patient strongly suggests that these two disease were temporally linked. To our knowledge, the association between CMV infection and immunotactoid glomerulopathy has not been documented previously.