title: Nephrotic syndrome in adult Africans in Nairobi.
abstract: The adult nephrotic syndrome as met with in Nairobi is predominantly encountered in young sophisticated African women, most of whom began to use skin-lightening creams containing mercury before the symptomatic onset of their illness. The particular form of mercury involved is well known to cause the nephrotic syndrome in other circumstances-for example, when applied to the skin in the treatment of psoriasis. In these circumstances the pathogenetic mechanism is thought to be of an idiosyncratic type. The use of mercury-containing skin-lightening creams in the patients studied seemed to be particularly associated with a "minimal-change" ("light-negative") renal glomerular lesion, this lesion being present in half of the patients. The prognosis in this group of patients seems remarkably good, with 50% entering remission, 77% of these doing so spontaneously on discontinuing the use of the creams.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D000367:Age Factors; D000510:Alpha-Globulins / Q000032:analysis; D001609:Beta-Globulins / Q000032:analysis; D044383:Black People; D001798:Blood Proteins / Q000032:analysis; D003358:Cosmetics / Q000009:adverse effects*; D004655:Emulsions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007630:Kenya; D007678:Kidney Glomerulus / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008628:Mercury / Q000009:adverse effects*; D009404:Nephrotic Syndrome / Q000139:chemically induced*; D011379:Prognosis; D012075:Remission, Spontaneous; D012709:Serum Albumin / Q000032:analysis; D012737:Sex Factors; D005719:gamma-Globulins / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D000510:Alpha-Globulins; D001609:Beta-Globulins; D001798:Blood Proteins; D003358:Cosmetics; D004655:Emulsions; D012709:Serum Albumin; D005719:gamma-Globulins; D008628:Mercury