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Authors measured the thickness of the basement membranes of the proximal and distal tubuli in the renal cortex in 20 patients with verified diabetes mellitus. The test group consisted of 20 patients with small abnormalities of glomeruli (or in the range of variable norm), of the same sex and comparable age. Measurements were performed in locations without tubulo-interstitial changes. The average thickness of TBM in patients with diabetes mellitus was 1540 +/- 616 nm, and in the test group 360 +/- 86 nm, which is a statistically significant difference (p0.000000). In spite of the small number of cases and possible error in the manual measurement of electron microscopic pictures, a significant thickening of TBM in diabetes mellitus has been found. We consider this to be of diagnostic value.

There were 942 cases of glomerulonephritis classified according to WHO out of 1499 renal biopsies. Immunoglobulins IgG, IgA, IgM, C3 and fibrinogen were examined immunohistochemically in a standard way and IgD, IgE, albumin, C4 and HBsAg in a non-standard way. The results were compared with a control group. The results show that the excluding value of the negative immunohistochemical examination in glomerulonephritis is higher than the proving value of the positive examination.

The distribution of HLA antigens was determined in 105 patients suffering from glomerulonephritis. No significant deviations from normal were found when the various antigen frequencies in the patients were compared with those in a healthy control group. However, several significant associations were found when the patients were subdivided according to the clinical, histopathological, and immunological criteria. The highest significant association was observed between the HLA-Bw35 antigen and the subgroup of nonstreptococcal (probably viral) Schonlein-Henoch nephritis ( p