Currently available and potential future treatment options for IgA nephropathy

Abstract

Introduction: Immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common primary glomerulonephritis throughout the world. The clinical presentation and disease progression is very variable and up to 30% of patients will progress to end-stage renal disease by 20 years. Despite improved understanding of the pathogenesis in the last decades, no disease-specific treatment is so far available. The aim of this review is to discuss the role of the currently available IgAN treatments and other new investigational and potential future treatment options.

Areas covered: In the context of an updated overview of IgAN pathogenesis, the authors discuss currently available treatments in clinical practice, drugs under clinical investigation and potential new therapeutic agents.

Expert opinion: Currently available treatment options for IgAN reduce surrogate markers of the disease progression and seem to slow the progression of disease to a certain degree. Researches on some pathogenesis-targeted therapeutic agents are in progress. To develop a new therapy, investigation of these agents in clinical trials in collaboration with pharmaceutical industry is essential. To consider these drugs as an orphan drug for IgAN would make it more achievable for the clinicians to perform clinical trials to investigate the efficacy of these drugs in patients with IgAN.

Keywords::

• IgA nephropathy
• pathogenesis
• spleen tyrosine kinase
• SYK inhibitor
• treatment

Notes

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