Treatment for Lupus Nephritis

Basically, treatment for Lupus Nephritis patients should be based on clinical symptoms, laboratory results as well as renal biopsy results. According to the severity of the illness condition, different treatment or medicine will be chosen. Some common medicines include glucocorticoid, NSAID, antimalarial, cytotoxic agents and anticoagulant as well as Chinese Medicine, etc. Besides, all the effect of treatment and medicine should also includes the effect on kinds of complications or side effects from medicines, etc. Therefore, the treatment and medicine prescription for each patient will be specialized and individual. Among all the methods, glucocorticoid is the most common one.
As for patients with slight illness condition, the treatment is mainly chosen based on the symptoms out of kidney and NSAID as well as antimalarial is commonly used. Some Chinese medicine immunosuppressant such as Common Threewingnut Root is also suggested due to its effect on reducing protein and blood in urine as well as its less side effect.
For patients with more serious proteinuria which has got to the degree of Nephrotic Syndrome, hormone dosage should be increased. Normally treatment effect can be found in 4 to 6 weeks. However, if patients who are not sensitive to hormone has already had kidney function decline and serious hypertension, hormone dosage should be reduced, but cytotoxic agents will be added, such as cyclophosphamide.
If patients have acute progressive illness condition and their kidney function declines sharply, dialysis should be considered under such condition in order to keep the safety of the patients.
Sometimes, renal biopsy is helpful for doctors to have a better idea about patients illness condition and to get a rough idea about the prognosis, which is helpful to adjust the treatment schedule and medicine prescription in order to get a better treatment effect.