Common Symptoms and Complications of IgA Nephropathy

IgA nephropathy is also known as Berger’s disease and it is a special kind of glomerulonephritis and it usually occurs to children and adolescent. The characteristic of the disease is the glomerular mesangial proliferation and there is deposition of IgA in the mesangial areas in the immune fluoroscopy.

Gross hematuria (blood in urine) is the common sign of IgA nephropathy and when hematuria occurs, there will be slight discomforts in the whole body such as low fever, muscular soreness and some patients might have severe back pain and abdominal pain which might be related with the intestinal IgA vasculitis. Usually after the onset of gross hematuria the red blood cells can disappear and gross hematuria will turn into microscopic hematuria. Gross hematuria relapse very easily and the duration of each onset will be extended in each recurrence. If the red blood cells are mainly deformed, it indicates glomerular hematuria and sometimes it cane mixed hematuria. IgA nephropathy will recur after respiratory tract infections in about 60% patients after the gross hematuria disapper. For those that have repeated onset of tonsil inflammation, the tonsil extirpate can be done.

Besides hematuria, there are many other symptoms and complications.

1. Very few patients will have acute renal failure with oliguria and this can be alleviated with timely and proper treatments or it may be life-threatening.

2. There will also be the symptoms of acute nephritis such as transient hypertension. Other symptoms include microscopic hematuria with or without mild edema. It is easy to be misdiagnosed and renal biopsy can confirm it.

3. Nephrotic syndrome. Sometimes the diseased children will have hypertension as well as proteinuria. The prognosis is poor if there isglomerular sclerosis or renal vascular sclerosis.

In case of persistent and recurrent hematuria, proper and effective treatments should be received as soon as possible or it.