Patients with membranous nephropathy (MN) are at increased risk of developing cancer, according to researchers in Norway.
They followed 161 patients with MN for up to 15 years (mean 6.2 years). Cancer developed in 33 patients. In 24 of these patients, cancer was diagnosed after the diagnosis of MN, the investigators reported in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases (2007;50:396-403). The expected number of cancers in the 15 years following diagnosis MN was 10.7.
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The median time to diagnosis of cancer following diagnosis of MN was 60 months.
Patients with MN who developed cancer were older (65 vs. 52 years), the researchers noted. Patients with cancer and MN had a greater mortality rate than patients without cancer (67% vs. 26%).
