NDT Advance Access originally published online on October 3, 2007
Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation 2008 23(1):39-41; doi:10.1093/ndt/gfm667
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© The Author [2007]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of ERA-EDTA. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Aristolochic acid: the common culprit of Chinese herbs nephropathy and Balkan endemic nephropathy*
Department of Nephrology and Renal Transplantation, University Hospital Gasthuisberg, Leuven, Belgium
Correspondence and offprint requests to: Yves Vanrenterghem, MD, PhD, Department of Nephrology and Renal Transplantation, University Hospital Gasthuisberg, Herestraat 49, B3000 Leuven, Belgium. Tel: +32 16 344580; Fax: +32 16 344599; E-mail: yves.vanrenterghem@uz.kuleuven.ac.be
Keywords: aristolochic acid; Balkan endemic nephropathy; Chinese herbs nephropathy; urothelial malignancies
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Balkan endemic nephropathy (BEN) is a devastating tubulointerstitial kidney disease affecting men and women living in rural areas of Bosnia–Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Serbia [1]. The disease occurs exclusively in farming villages situated in valleys of the Danube River and its tributaries. Since its first description in 1956, the geographic distribution as well as other epidemiologic features have remained constant, including its focal occurrence in certain villages, its familial but not inherited character, the initial manifestation after residence in an endemic village for 15 years or more and the strong association with urothelial malignancies of the upper urinary tract. Despite the extensive research on the aetiology of BEN and the accompanying urothelial tumours,