Introduction

Abstract

The notion that glomerular diseases might be treated with Sandimmun is recent. In the 1980s it was shown that Sandimmun induced remission of disease activity in NZB/NZW mice [33, 37, 40, 54]. At the same time, a pilot study was undertaken on various forms of glomerulonephritis [20]. All the patients had exhibited steadily declining creatinine clearances over the preceding 2 years. Sandimmun was given for 4 months. The rate of deterioration of renal function was slower during the trial but became faster again after Sandimmun was withdrawn. This indicated that Sandimmun did not have a noxious effect on diseased kidneys and even favorably influenced the course of glomerular disease. The following year several nephrological units independently tried Sandimmun for the treatment of idiopathic nephrotic syndrome in adults [22, 43, 47, 48] and in children [11, 12, 19, 35, 58, 75]. The preliminary results of such feasibility studies were presented at the 1st International Symposium on Ciclosporin in Autoimmune Diseases in Basle in the spring of 1985 [71].