Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The etiology and pathogenesis of idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (INS) in children remains incompletely understood. We investigated correlations of blood concentrations of eosinophilic cationic protein (ECP), some vitamins, and anti-nephrin antibodies with disease activity of INS in Slovenian children. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this prospective, single-center study, we took sequential blood samples from children with INS at disease onset or relapse (before corticosteroid (CS) treatment), at time of remission, and after discontinuation of CS treatment, whenever feasible. We performed the quantitative detection of anti-nephrin antibodies in patients serum with enzyme-linked immuno-sorbent assay, blood concentration measurements of ECP and vitamins with standard laboratory methods and statistical analysis with ANOVA. RESULTS: We included 17 children with INS (15 boys and 2 girls). We detected statistically significantly highest ECP concentrations at disease onset or relapse, lowest vitamin E concentrations in remission after CS treatment and highest vitamin A concentrations at time of remission achievement. We also detected decreased levels of vitamin D at times of disease onset, relapse and remission achievement. However, we did not detect anti-nephrin antibodies in any serum sample. CONCLUSION: We confirmed significant concentration variations of ECP and vitamins E, A, and D at different stages of INS disease activity. These findings suggest their potential role in the etiology of INS and make these molecules as candidates for biomarkers of disease activity. We did not confirm the pathogenic role of anti-nephrin antibodies in our pediatric population.