Evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for IgA nephropathy 2014

Excerpt

Immunoglobulin A (IgA) nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common primary glomerulonephritis, and patients typically require dialysis when the disease progresses to end-stage renal failure. As the incidence of IgAN is high in Asian populations, including Japanese, establishing a treatment strategy in Japan is strongly warranted. In 1995, the joint committee of the Special Study Group of the Progressive Renal Dysfunction Research Group of the Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare (MHLW) and the Japanese Society of Nephrology (JSN) developed the Clinical Practice Guides for IgAN for the first time. Its second version was published with a partial amendment in 2002. The third version, published in 2011, analyzed data from a multicenter study conducted mainly by the Research Group for IgAN in the Progressive Renal Dysfunction Research Group of MHLW to propose a novel prognostic classification (risk stratification for dialysis), adding clinical severity to histological severity. These clinical practice guides present clear prognostic criteria and treatment guidelines according to the criteria. Therefore, these guides have been widely used in clinical practice or pathological diagnosis, and they have contributed to the diagnosis and treatment of IgAN in Japan. …