Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE, or lupus) is an autoimmune disease. This means there is a problem with the body's immune system.
Normally, the immune system helps protect the body from infection or harmful substances. But in patients with an autoimmune disease, the immune system cannot tell the difference between harmful substances and healthy ones. As a result, the immune system attacks otherwise healthy cells and tissue.
Lupus nephritis affects approximately 3 out of every 10,000 people. In children with SLE, about half will have some form or degree of kidney involvement.
More than half of patients have not had other symptoms of SLE when they are diagnosed with lupus nephritis.
For general lupus symptoms, see the article on SLE.
Signs and tests
A physical exam shows signs of decreased kidney functioning with body swelling (edema). Blood pressure may be high. Abnormal sounds may be heard when the doctor listens to your heart and lungs.
A kidney biopsy is not used to diagnose lupus nephritis, but to determine what treatment is appropriate.
Treatment
The goal of treatment is to improve kidney function and to delay kidney failure.
Medicines may include corticosteroids or other medications that suppress the immune system, such as cyclophosphamide, mycophenolate mofetil, or azathioprine.
You may need dialysis to control symptoms of kidney failure, sometimes for only a while. A kidney transplant may be recommended. People with active lupus should not have a transplant because the condition can occur in the transplanted kidney.
Expectations (prognosis)
How well you do depends on the specific form of lupus nephritis. You may have flare-ups, and then times when you do not have any symptoms.
Some people with this condition develop chronic kidney failure.
Although lupus nephritis may return in a transplanted kidney, it rarely leads to end-stage kidney disease.
Appel GB, Radhakrishnan J, D’Agti V. Secondary glomerular disease. In: Brenner BM, ed. Brenner and Rector's the Kidney. 8th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2007:chap 31.
Review Date:
9/19/2011
Reviewed By:
David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine. Herbert Y. Lin, MD, PHD, Nephrologist, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.
