Danubian endemic familial nephropathy

Danubian endemic familial nephropathy
Classification and external resources
ICD-10	N15.0
OMIM	124100
DiseasesDB	31409
MeSH	D001449

Danubian endemic familial nephropathy (DEFN), also called Balkan endemic nephropathy,^[1] is a form of interstitial nephritis. It was first identified in the 1920s among several small, discrete communities along the Danube River and its major tributaries, in the modern countries of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.

The first official publication was made by the Bulgarian nephrologist Dr.Yoto Tanchev and his team in 1956 in the Bulgarian Journal "Savremenna Medizina",9, 1956, a priority generally acknowledged by the international nephrological community. Their study was based on a wide screening of inhabitants of the villages around the town of Vratsa, Bulgaria. Their contribution to the study of this strange endemic disease of the kidneys consisted in the description of symptoms which were not typical for the common chronic nephritis, i.e. incidence only in adults (no children affected), lack of high blood pressure, xanthochromia of palms and soles (Tanchev's sign), early anemia of hypochromous type, lack of proteinuria and slowly progression of the kidney failure. Tanchev et al. suggested this condition to be a disease sui generis. Their hypothesis for the etiology was related to a possible intoxication with heavy metals, because the villages affected were supplied with water coming from the nearby karst-type Vratsa Mountain. The first name of the disease was "Vratsa nephritis". Later, an avalanche of research works and publications by Bulgarian and foreign scientists followed. Unfortunately, the etiology remains unknown till present. Dr. Yoto Tanchev died in the age of 83 in 2000.

A striking feature of the disease is its very localized occurrence. There are approximately ten small areas where it occurs, all of them more or less rural, but nothing seems to connect those areas, other than the occurrence of this illness.

Causes

The etiology for DEFN is currently unknown.^[2] It has recently been hypothesized that chronic exposure to dietary aristolochic acid is a major risk for DEFN. Aristolochic acid may come from Aristolochia clematitis, a plant native to the endemic region, and its seeds may comingle with wheat used for bread.^[3] This theory has recently gained further support through research by Arthur P. Grollman, cancer biologist and the director of Stony Brook University's chemical biology lab in New York, and Bojan Jelaković, an associate professor at the Zagreb University School of Medicine.^[4]

See also

• Nephropathy
• Citrinin
• Ochratoxin A

References

1. ^ Online 'Mendelian Inheritance in Man' (OMIM) 124100
2. ^ Batuman V (2006). "Fifty years of Balkan endemic nephropathy: daunting questions, elusive answers". Kidney Int. 69 (4): 644–6. doi:10.1038/sj.ki.5000231. PMID 16467889. 
3. ^ Grollman AP, Shibutani S, Moriya M, et al. (2007). "Aristolochic acid and the etiology of endemic (Balkan) nephropathy". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104 (29): 12129–34. doi:10.1073/pnas.0701248104. PMC 1913550. PMID 17620607. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1913550. 
4. ^ Julia C. Mead (2007). "Manna from hell". The Scientist 21 (11): 44. http://www.the-scientist.com/article/home/53787/. 

External links

• synd/1341 at Who Named It?
• 1120927774 at GPnotebook
• Slideshow at army.mil
• BBC Horizon The curse of Karash