Continued absence of clinical renal disease seven to 12 years after poststreptococcal acute glomerulonephritis in Trinidad

Abstract

Continued improvement was noted among 722 patients in Trinidad seven to 12 years after the onset of poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis. In the five years since earlier follow-up, two of 709 patients with previous symptomatic disease apparently had died from renal failure, and 10 patients had died from unrelated causes. Nineteen patients presently had proteinuria, three had hematuria, and three had proteinuria plus hematuria. Of these abnormalities, proteinurias in only three patients and proteinuria plus hematurias in three more patients were persistent. Thus, 0.8 per cent of the study group had persistent abnormalities. When one adds those dead with renal disease, the percentage with renal damage becomes 1.1 per cent. In addition, six patients had protein in the two urine samples obtained after assuming the lordotic position for 10 minutes and in only one of the two urine samples obtained upon rising in the morning, making 1.4 per cent with probable evidence of chronic renal disease, including the dead patients. Hypertension was present in 16 (2.3 per cent) of the patients and was much more common in those more than 20 years old (18.4 per cent). However, this prevalence of hypertension did not exceed that found in normal Trinidadians. Only three patients had serum creatinine values greater than 1.2 mg/dl. None of 13 patients with previous asymptomatic glomerulonephritis presently showed any abnormality. Thus, very few cases of chronic poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis appear to have developed in the 722 patients studied.