Syndrome characterized by glomerulonephritis and arthritis Libman-Sacks disease with predominantly renal involvement.

Abstract

IN RECENT years we have studied an unusual group of cases to which we wish to draw attention. They show certain interesting similarities from both the clinical and the pathologic standpoint. The clinical courses in these cases and the terminal pictures have been such that we feel they constitute a definite, recognizable syndrome. The features these patients exhibited in common were an arthritis of varying duration, the subsequent development of albuminuria of rather marked degree, nephrotic edema, subsequent renal insufficiency and, finally, a fatal outcome with the pathologic findings of a subacute type of glomerulonephritis. The arthritis was the initially recognizable feature of the disorder. It was nonspecific in nature and characterized by pain, tenderness, stiffness, redness and swelling of the small and medium-sized joints. These symptoms were migratory, of mild or moderate intensity and transient, and they disappeared without leaving discernible permanent damage. In this stage no definite diagnosis