What are Glomerular Diseases

What are Glomerular Diseases

Introduction

Many diseases affect how well the kidneys work by attacking the glomeruli, which are small units in the kidneys that clean the blood. Glomerular diseases are a group of conditions that have many different genetic and environmental causes. They can be put into two main groups:

• Glomerulonephritis is an inflammation of the kidney’s filtering membrane tissue, which separates waste and extra fluid from the blood.
• Glomerulosclerosis means that the tiny blood vessels in the kidney have become scarred or hardened.

Even though they have different causes, glomerulonephritis and glomerulosclerosis can both lead to kidney failure.

What do the kidneys do, and what are they?

The kidneys are bean-shaped organs that are on either side of the spine, just below the rib cage. Every day, the two kidneys filter about 120 to 150 quarts of blood to make about 1 to 2 quarts of urine, which is made up of wastes and extra fluid.

Blood gets into the kidneys through arteries that split into tiny groups of blood vessels inside the kidneys. The Greek word for “filter” is where the word “glomerulus” comes from. The word’s plural form is glomeruli. In each kidney, there are about 1 million glomeruli, which act as filters. The glomerulus is attached to the end of a tubule, which is a small tube that collects fluid. The glomerulus filters the blood, and extra fluid and wastes go into the tubule, where they are turned into urine. Eventually, larger tubes called ureters carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder.

A nephron is a group of glomeruli and tubules. About a million nephrons make up each kidney. In healthy nephrons, the glomerular membrane that separates the blood vessel from the tubule lets waste and extra water into the tubule while keeping blood cells and protein in the bloodstream.

How do diseases of the glomeruli affect the way the kidneys work?

Glomerular diseases hurt the glomeruli, which lets protein and sometimes red blood cells leak into the urine. Sometimes, a glomerular disease also makes it hard for the kidney to get rid of waste, so it starts to build up in the blood. Also, when blood proteins like albumin are lost in the urine, their level in the bloodstream can drop. Albumin acts like a sponge in normal blood. It pulls extra fluid from the body into the bloodstream, where it stays until the kidneys get rid of it. But when albumin leaks into the urine, the blood loses its ability to take in extra fluid from the body. Fluid can build up outside of the circulatory system and cause swelling in the face, hands, feet, and ankles.

What are the signs of a disease in the glomeruli?

Some of the symptoms and signs of glomerular disease are:

• Albuminuria is when the urine has a lot of protein in it.
• Hematuria means there is blood in the urine.
• Reduced glomerular filtration rate: the blood doesn’t get cleaned up as well.
• Hypoproteinemia: low protein in the blood
• Edema is when parts of the body swell up.

One or more of these signs can be the first sign that your kidneys aren’t working right. But how would you know if you have proteinuria, for example? You may not see a doctor before. But some of these symptoms show up in ways that can be seen:

• Proteinuria may cause foamy urine.
• Blood can make the urine pink or the color of coke.
• Edema may be obvious in the hands and ankles, especially at the end of the day, or around the eyes when you wake up in the morning, for example.

How are glomerular diseases found?

Patients with glomerular disease have a lot of protein in their urine. If the levels are very high, this is called the “nephrotic range.” Red blood cells are also sometimes found in the urine, especially in some types of glomerular disease. By measuring the amount of protein and red blood cells in the urine, urinalysis can tell if the kidneys are damaged. Blood tests look at the levels of waste products like creatinine and urea nitrogen to see if the kidneys aren’t able to filter as well as they should. If these lab tests show damage to the kidneys, the doctor may suggest an ultrasound or an x-ray to see if the kidneys are the wrong shape or size. This kind of test is called a “renal image.” But since glomerular disease causes problems at the cellular level, the doctor will probably also suggest a kidney biopsy. In this procedure, a needle is used to remove small pieces of tissue that are then looked at under different types of microscopes, each of which shows a different part of the tissue. A biopsy could be used to confirm glomerular disease and find out what caused it.

Why does someone get glomerular disease?

glomerular disease can be caused by a number of different health problems. It could be caused by an infection, a drug that is bad for the kidneys, or a disease that affects the whole body, such as diabetes or lupus. Many different kinds of diseases can cause the nephron or glomerulus to swell or scar. Sometimes glomerular disease is idiopathic, which means that there doesn’t seem to be another disease that causes it.

The categories below can overlap. This means that a disease could fit into two or more of them. For example, diabetic nephropathy is a type of glomerular disease that can be put into two groups: systemic diseases, because diabetes is a systemic disease, and sclerotic diseases, because the damage to the kidneys causes scarring.

Autoimmune Diseases

When the immune system works right, it makes antibodies and immunoglobulins, which are protein-like substances that protect the body from organisms that try to get in. In an autoimmune disease, the immune system makes autoantibodies, which are antibodies or immunoglobulins that attack the body itself. Autoimmune diseases can be systemic, meaning they affect many parts of the body, or they can only affect certain organs or parts of the body.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) affects many parts of the body, mostly the skin and joints, but also the kidneys. Because SLE is more common in women than in men, some researchers think that a genetic factor linked to sex may make a person more likely to get it. However, a viral infection has also been linked to the disease. Lupus nephritis is the name for the kidney disease caused by SLE. It happens when autoantibodies form in the glomeruli or are deposited there, which causes inflammation. In the end, the inflammation may cause scars that make it hard for the kidneys to work right. Conventional treatment for lupus nephritis is a combination of two drugs: cyclophosphamide, a cytotoxic agent that suppresses the immune system, and prednisolone, a corticosteroid used to reduce inflammation. In place of cyclophosphamide, the immunosuppressant mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) has been used. Early studies show that MMF may be as effective as cyclophosphamide and have fewer side effects.

Anti-GBM disease, also called Goodpasture’s disease, is caused by an autoantibody that attacks the kidneys and lungs. People often find out they have the autoantibody for the first time when they cough up blood. But when someone has Goodpasture Syndrome, the damage to the lungs is usually not as bad as the damage to the kidneys, which happens over time and is permanent. Goodpasture Syndrome is a rare disease that mostly affects young men, but it can also affect women, children, and older people. Some treatments include drugs that weaken the immune system and a therapy called plasmapheresis that cleans the blood and gets rid of the autoantibodies.

IgA nephropathy is a disease of the glomeruli that happens when immunoglobulin A (IgA) builds up in the glomeruli and causes inflammation. IgA nephropathy wasn’t known to cause glomerular disease until the late 1960s, when sophisticated biopsy techniques were made that could find IgA deposits in kidney tissue.

Blood in the urine is the most common sign of IgA nephropathy, but it is often a silent disease that may not be found for many years. Because IgA nephropathy is silent in its early stages, it is hard to know how many people have it. The only way to find it is through specific medical tests. It is thought that this disease is the most common cause of primary glomerulonephritis, which is a disease of the glomeruli that is not caused by a systemic disease like lupus or diabetes. Men seem to be affected by it more than women. IgA nephropathy can affect people of all ages, but young people with it rarely show signs of kidney failure. This is because the disease usually takes a few years to get to the point where it causes problems that can be seen.

For early or mild cases of IgA nephropathy in people with normal blood pressure and less than 1 gram of protein in their urine every 24 hours, no treatment is recommended. When protein is lost at a rate of more than 1 gram per day, treatment is meant to protect kidney function by lowering protein loss and keeping blood pressure in check. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), which block a hormone called angiotensin, are the best way to do both of these things at the same time.

Conclusion

We have been able to deduce that Many diseases affect how well the kidneys work by attacking the glomeruli, which are small units in the kidneys that clean the blood. Glomerular diseases are a group of conditions that have many different genetic and environmental causes. If you have any questions or concerns about what is written here please comment in the discussion below. contact us Rovich Diagnostic Services for consultancy.