Nephrol Dial Transplant. 2008;23:1926-1930
Six months of mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) treatment is as effective in the short term as conventional therapy for primary treatment of membranous nephropathy (MN) and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a pilot study in India found.
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It also induces remission faster and reduces steroid exposure in FSGS patients, according to the investigators at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh.
Vivekanand Jha, MD, and colleagues recruited 54 patients who were then randomized to receive either an MMF-based regimen (28 patients) or conventional treatment (26 patients). The MMF-based regimen consisted of MMF 2 g/day for six months along with prednisolone at 0.5 mg/kg per day for two to three months.
Conventional therapy consisted of prednisolone 1 mg/kg per day for three to six months for FSGS and alternating monthly cycles of steroids and cyclophosphamide for six months for MN. The primary end point was the change in urinary protein/creatinine ratio.
Among the MN patients, 64% of MMF-treated patients and 80% of those in the standard-treatment group achieved remission; among the FSGS patients, the proportions were 70% and 69%. None of the differences in remission rates between the treatment groups was statistically significant.
FSGS patients in the MMF group achieved remission faster and received a lower cumulative steroid dose.
