Change in Liver Fibrosis Associates with Progress of Diabetic Nephropathy in Patients with Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a major complication of diabetes. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is common in diabetes, and liver fibrosis is a prognostic risk factor for NAFLD. The interaction between DN and liver fibrosis in NAFLD remains unclear. In 189 patients with DN and NAFLD who received an education course about diabetic nephropathy, liver fibrosis was evaluated using the fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) index. The association between the outcome of DN and changes in liver fibrosis was examined. The FIB-4 index was maintained at the baseline level in patients with improved DN, while it was increased in other patients. The ΔFIB-4 index was positively correlated with changes in albuminuria and proteinuria (ρ = 0.22, p = 0.004). In a multivariate analysis, changes in albuminuria and proteinuria were associated with the ΔFIB-4 index (p = 0.002). Patients with a progressive FIB-4 index category from baseline to 5 years showed a lower event-free survival rate after 5 years than patients with an improved FIB-4 index category (p = 0.037). The outcome of DN is associated with changes in liver fibrosis in patients with diabetes, NAFLD and DN. Developing a preventive and therapeutic approach for these conditions is required.

A case of infectious endocarditis-associated crescentic glomerulonephritis with intracranial hemorrhage.

A 55-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital because of fever and renal impairment. The patient had undergone a tooth extraction 11 months prior to admission. Echocardiography demonstrated vegetation on the mitral valve, and Streptococcus mitis was detected on blood culture. Accordingly, infectious endocarditis (IE) was diagnosed. Renal biopsy showed crescentic glomerulonephritis. Based on the negative staining for immunoglobulins and complement components in immunofluorescence study and lack of dense deposits on electron microscopy, the renal involvement was considered to be of the pauci-immune type. Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and subdural hematoma (SDH) developed simultaneously following commencement of antibiotic therapy. The intracranial involvement improved by conservative therapy. Antibiotic treatment resulted in gradual control of IE infection and improvement of renal function. A repeated renal biopsy, performed about 5 months after the first biopsy, showed amelioration of glomerular injury and interstitial damage. To our knowledge, our case was the second to report simultaneous developments of both SAH and SDH secondary to IE. We postulate that the glomerular injury was associated with IE. We report here a rare case of IE-associated crescentic glomerulonephritis with complications of SAH and SDH.