UP FRONT MATTERS

Current Views on Collapsing Glomerulopathy

Mamdouh Albaqumi ^* and Laura Barisoni ¹

*King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Department of Medicine, Section of Nephrology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and New York University School of Medicine, Department of Pathology and Medicine, Division of Nephrology, New York, New York

¹ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: barisl01{at}med.nyu.edu.

	Abstract

Collapsing glomerulopathy is a proliferative disease defined by segmental or global wrinkling of the glomerular basement membranes associated with podocyte proliferation. These lesions are particularly poor responders to standard therapies. First described as an idiopathic disorder or following HIV infection, it is now associated with a broad group of diseases and different pathogenetic mechanisms, which participate in podocyte injury and mitogenic stimulation. Because of this etiologic heterogeneity, there is clear need for new therapeutic approaches to target each variant of this entity. Historical background, terminology, morphologic and phenotypic features, and suggested mechanisms are reviewed in this manuscript.