Nephrotic syndrome related to chronic graft versus host disease after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation in a patient with malignant lymphoma]

A 13-yr-old boy was diagnosed as T cell lymphoma. After the second remission, he underwent BMT from an HLA-identical, MLC negative sibling donor. After BMT, he developed grade II acute GVHD. GVHD was improved by pulsed steroid therapy using prednisolone. About 12 months after BMT, he developed bronchiolitis obliterans, sicca syndrome, and leukoderma, which were related to chronic GVHD. Pulsed steroid therapy was carried out twice, and his condition improved. Twenty-seven months after BMT, he developed nephrotic syndrome. A renal biopsy was performed, and the diagnosis was histologically membranous nephropathy and focal glomerular sclerosis. The response to steroids was not satisfactory. After 5 weeks, dipyridamole was added, but proteinuria persisted. Proteinuria disappeared 8 weeks after the addition of cyclosporine. The second biopsy after 5 months of treatment revealed an improvement in the renal lesions. The patient showed a low T4 to T8 ratio of T-lymphocytes at the onset of nephrotic syndrome. However after treatment with cyclosporine, the ratio gradually increased. These findings suggested the nephrotic syndrome in this patient was related to renal involvement in the course of chronic GVHD.