Successful recovery of associated interstitial nephritis and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis in patients with HCV and HIV treated with sofosbuvir and daclatasvir and revision of literature

The progress of autoimmune hepatitis research and future challenges

Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a chronic liver inflammatory disease with various immune system manifestations, showing a global trend of increased prevalence. AIH is diagnosed through histological abnormalities, clinical manifestations, and biochemical indicators. The biochemical markers involve interfacial hepatitis, transaminase abnormalities, positive autoantibodies, etc. Although AIH pathogenesis is unclear, gene mutations and immunological factors could be the leading factors. AIH usually presents as a chronic liver disease and sometimes as acute hepatitis, making it challenging to distinguish it from drug-related hepatitis due to similar clinical symptoms. Normalizing transaminases and serum IgG levels is essential in assessing the remission status of AIH treatment. Glucocorticoids and azathioprine are the first-line AIH treatment, with lifelong maintenance therapy in some patients. The quality of life and survival can be improved after appropriate treatment. However, certain limitations jeopardize the quality of treatment, including long treatment cycles, side effects, poor patient compliance, and inability to inhibit liver fibrosis and cirrhosis. Accurate AIH animal models will help us understand the pathophysiology of the disease while providing fresh perspectives for avoiding and treating AIH. This review will help us understand AIH better, from the cellular and molecular causes to the clinical features, and will provide insight into new therapy techniques with fewer side effects.

Clinical significance of kidney immune complex deposition in children with acute interstitial nephritis disease

BACKGROUND

Acute interstitial nephritis (AIN) is a relatively rare cause of acute kidney injury (AKI) in children. Immune complex (IC) deposition was rare in renal pathology of AIN.

METHODS

Based on the status and position of IC deposition, a total of 78 children with AIN were divided into two groups: the non-IC group and IC group. IC group was further divided into two subgroups: intraglomerular (IG)-IC group and extraglomerular (EG)-IC group. To compare the clinical and histological features, renal outcomes between groups.

RESULTS

The IC deposition, IG-IC and EG-IC deposition were observed in 22 (28.21%), 12 (15.38%) and 10 (12.82%) children, respectively. The IC group demonstrated a higher frequency of AKI, higher level of Scr, urine N-acetyl-β-D-glucosidase (NAG) enzyme, retinol-binding protein (RBP), neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), higher frequency of neutrophils, plasma cells and eosinophils infiltrate, higher scores of interstitial inflammation (i), total inflammation (ti) and interstitial edema, lower level of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) as compared to non-IC group (p < 0.05, p < 0.01). EG-IC deposition positively moderate correlated with levels of RBP, IG-IC deposition positively moderate correlated with plasma cell infiltrate, interstitial inflammation (i), total inflammation (ti) and interstitial edema. Interstitial inflammation, EG-IC deposition and interstitial edema were risk factors for AKD in AIN, and interstitial fibrosis/tubular atrophy (IF/TA) was a risk factor for CKD in children with AIN.

CONCLUSION

IG-IC and EG-IC deposition positively correlated with severe clinical manifestations, glomerular and tubular injuries, and EG-IC deposition was risk factor for the progression of AIN in children.

Inflammatory leucocyte infiltrates are associated with recovery in biopsy-proven acute interstitial nephritis: a 20-year registry-based case series

Background

Acute interstitial nephritis (AIN) is a renal injury causing renal function deterioration and requiring renal replacement therapy (RRT) in a substantial number of cases. Therapy is based on withdrawal of suspicious causative drugs or the underlying diseases and/or steroid application if renal function is not restored after cessation of the underlying condition. Hard clinical evidence for augmenting steroid therapy is not available.

Methods

We reviewed the course and diagnosis for >20 years among all 1126 biopsied samples of our tertiary renal centre.

Results

49 (4.4%) were diagnosed with primary AIN, corresponding to an annual incidence of 1/100 000 population; 17 out of 49 biopsy-proven AIN patients required short-term or long-term (n = 5) RRT. According to a combined outcome criterion of coming off dialysis and/or reaching serum creatinine <200 µmol/L, 19 patients reached recovery whereas 20 did not. Among 39 patients with a comprehensive clinical and histopathological data set, presence of cortical scars, AIN histological activity (acute leucocyte infiltrates) and proteinuria were baseline parameters discriminating significantly between groups with or without recovery. No associations with the presence of specific drugs were found. Therapeutic use of steroids was associated with a lower probability of recovery (P = 0.008), presumably due to inclusion bias.

Conclusions

Following our basic finding of the importance of histopathological parameters of acuity associated with recovery, we argue for the inauguration of grading measures to characterize this issue quantitatively and make it usable for future controlled investigations. Finally, we provide a suggestion for a therapeutic algorithm in the management of AIN.