title: Successful treatment with retinoids in patients with lupus nephritis.
abstract: Lupus nephritis is a major manifestation of systemic lupus erythematosus. Treatment with such immunosuppressive agents as corticosteroids or cyclophosphamide can decrease the progression of lupus nephritis; however, these agents have potentially severe adverse reactions. Therefore, the development of new drugs with fewer side effects is needed. Here, we report 2 patients with lupus that were treated successfully with retinoids. Initially, both patients were treated with 60 mg/d of prednisolone. However, nephrotic syndrome was not improved. Subsequently, treatment with 10 mg/d of all-trans-retinoic acid was started orally and elicited a good response, showing a decrease in proteinuria. Although additional controlled clinical studies are needed to confirm these findings, we suggest that therapy using retinoids may represent a novel approach to the treatment of patients with lupus nephritis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nephrology and Rheumatology, Kinki University School of Medicine, Osaka-Sayama, Osaka, Japan. kkino@med.kindai.ac.jp
authors.forename: Koji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kinoshita
authors.forename: Kazuya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kishimoto
authors.forename: Hideki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shimazu
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nozaki
authors.forename: Masafumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sugiyama
authors.forename: Shinya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ikoma
authors.forename: Masanori
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Funauchi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008181:Lupus Nephritis / Q000188:drug therapy*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012074:Remission Induction; D014212:Tretinoin / Q000627:therapeutic use*
chemical_list: D014212:Tretinoin