Goodpasture syndrome history and symptoms
|
Goodpasture syndrome Microchapters |
|
Diagnosis |
|---|
|
Treatment |
|
Case Studies |
|
Goodpasture syndrome history and symptoms On the Web |
|
American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Goodpasture syndrome history and symptoms |
|
Risk calculators and risk factors for Goodpasture syndrome history and symptoms |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Most patients present with both lung and kidney disease, however, some patients present with one of these diseases alone. The first lung symptoms usually develop days to months before kidney damage is evident. There is an increased incidence of syndactly.
History and Symptoms
Symptoms may occur very slowly over months or even years, but they often develop quickly over days to weeks.
Loss of appetite, fatigue, weakness are often seen at first.
Lung symptoms may include:
- Dry cough, may cough up blood (bloody sputum)
- Difficulty breathing after activity
Kidney and other symptoms include:
- Swelling (edema) in any area of the body
- Burning sensation when urinating
- Bloody urine
- High blood pressure
- Nausea and vomiting
- Pale skin
Lung disease
Lung damage may cause nothing more serious than a dry cough and minor breathlessness and such mild symptoms may last for many years before more severe ones develop. At its most serious, however, lung damage may cause severe impairment of oxygenation so that intensive care is required. Deterioration between the two extremes may occur very rapidly, often at the same time as rapid deterioration in the kidney. The patient often does not seek medical attention until he or she begins coughing up blood (hemoptysis). The patient may be anemic due to loss of blood through lung haemorrhaging over a long period. In Goodpasture’s syndrome, unlike many other conditions that cause similar symptoms, lung hemorrhaging most often occurs in smokers and those with damage from lung infection or exposure to fumes.
Kidney disease
The kidney disease mostly affects the glomeruli causing a form of nephritis. It is usually not detected until a rapid advance of the disease occurs so that kidney function can be completely lost in a matter of days, a condition known as rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, or RPGN. Blood leaks into the urine causing hematuria, the volume urinated decreases and urea and other products usually excreted by the kidney are retained and build up in the blood. This is acute renal failure. Renal failure does not cause symptoms until more than 80% of kidney function has been lost. Symptoms include loss of appetite and sickness at first and then, when the damage is more advanced, breathlessness, high blood pressure and edema (swelling caused by fluid retention). The kidney involvement usually presents as nephritic syndrome, i.e. hematuria, a reduced glomerular filtration rate, and high blood pressure. This is in contrast to nephrotic syndrome, a more rare outcome of Goodpasture's, characterized by an abnormally large amount protein in the urine (proteinuria), coupled with severe edema.