Narrative review of generalities of the genus Leptospira and its virulence factors associated with renal pathophysiology

Worldwide, leptospirosis is the most highly prevalent zoonosis. Although the wide range of clinical manifestations of leptospirosis in humans is well-documented, knowledge of the mechanisms through which this pathogen causes kidney disease remains limited. This narrative review of the scientific literature presents experimental studies of pathophysiology and kidney disease in leptospirosis, both in humans and animals, and the results show that virulence factors are involved in kidney damage by inducing interstitial tubular nephritis, which is the most frequent pathological manifestation, additionally, to the acute non-oliguric renal lesion with hypokalemia, and loss of magnesium and sodium. Finally, it is concluded that in leptospirosis, the initial lesion in the kidney is caused by damage to the cell membrane of the proximal tubular region cells by pathogenic Leptospira virulence factors, thus exacerbating the immune response

A Clinical Study of IgA Nephropathy with Serum Hepatitis B Surface Antigen / 대한신장학회잡지

There are some clinical evidences that hepatitis B virus(HBV) infection may cause IgA nephropathy. To evaluate clinical significances and pathogenetic roles of HBV infection in patients with IgA nephropathy, we studied that varius clinical and lab- oratory findings in 172 patients with IgA nephrop-athy as serum hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive (19 cases) and negative group (153 cases). The result was as following: 1) The incidence of positive serum HRsAg was 11.0%(19/172 cases) in patients with IgA nephropathy and it was higher than that of the randomized age-sex matched general population(4.1%) but has no significance statistically. 2) There was no significant differences in incidence of hypertension, serum levels of IgA, C3, SGOT, SGFf between HBsAg postive and negative group. 3) The cases of nephrotic range proteinuria (3.5g/ day) was more prevalent in HBsAg positive group (31.6%) than that in negative group(7.2%). significantly (p<0.05). 4) The cases of impaired renal function (serum creatinine more than 1.4mg/dL) were more frequent in HBsAg positive group (42.19%) than that in neg-ative group (13.1%) significantly(p<0.05).