Hi,

If the light microscopy is totally negative for vasculitis but the urine sediment is active, you wonder whether the biopsy missed the pathology. How many glomeruli were present in the specimen?

Is her creatinine stable?

What was the anti-MPO titer?

Dr. Jordan Weinstein

I have had a few cases like this in older patients and have treated them more conservatively perhaps. I deferred typical induction therapy and placed them on imuran/prednisone. The difficulty of-course is deciding on an endpoint; the fibrous crescents might ultimately lead to obsolescent glomeruli or possibly recover- but in all likelihood, this could be her new baseline.

In the absence of ongoing inflammation with cellular crescents, it's hard to argue full scale induction treatment, especially since creatinine has stabilized and is systemically well.

Jordan