Collapsing glomerulopathy in systemic autoimmune disorders: a case occurring in the course of full blown systemic lupus erythematosus

Collapsing glomerulopathy (CG) is a recently described form of glomerular injury. Characteristic histopathological changes of CG consist of segmental and global collapse of the glomerular capillaries, wrinkling and retraction of the glomerular basement membrane, and marked hypertrophy and hyperplasia of podocytes. The most common cause is HIV associated nephropathy, but a few other causes were found recently.1 CG has been reported during infections by parvovirus B19 (PVB19), cytomegalovirus, filariosis or tuberculosis and treatment with pamidronate.1 CG has been also reported in systemic autoimmune disorders. We report a case of CG occurring as the initial manifestation of a well defined systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). A 17 year old young African woman was referred in September 2003 to our Internal Medicine Department for fatigue and fever (40°C). Physical examination showed alopecia, typical discoid lupus, …