Monitoring for gold salt nephropathy and follow-up of gold-induced proteinuria by micro-PAGE electrophoresis

Abstract

Intramusculary or orally administered gold salts are a standard regimen in the treatment of more severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which does not respond to non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID). Their use is limited by a high frequency of untoward effects. A common and severe complication of gold treatment is drug-induced proteinuria, occurring in 10–15% of the patients treated. Therefore examination of urine samples has to be performed regularly. Usually discrimination of gold-induced nephropathy from other forms of proteinuria is made by discontinuation of the drug or kidney biopsy. Withdrawal of gold may result in a flare-up of disease activity, and kidney biopsy is not done in all patients because of its high risk. Morphologically gold nephropathy shows as membranous glomerulonephritis, and glomerular proteinuria should be expected. We therefore monitor our patients on gold salts by micro-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (micro-PAGE) of the urine^l,2.

This is a summary of poster presentation