The following glomerular diseases occur in domestic animals:

Exudative glomerulitis
Membranous glomerulonephritis
Proliferative glomerulonephritis
Membranoproliferative glomerulnephritis

What is the definition of glomerulitis?

GLOMERULITIS is inflammation of the glomerulus only.  The reaction is limited to the glomerulus and the rest of the nephron is not affected.

What is the definition of glomerulonephritis?


The glomerulus AND other parts of the NEPHRON are damaged or have inflammatory lesions.  Note the glomeruli AND the tubules AND the interstitium have evidence of inflammation in this view. 

Glomerular damage usually induces tubular or interstitial damage too. One reason for this is that blood flow to the tubules goes through the glomerulus first, therefore inflammatory mediators will be carried to tubules, In addition, glomerular lesions may limit blood flow to the tubules resulting in ischemic damage.

We use modifiers, membranous, proliferative, membranoproliferative, or exudative to further characterize the glomerular lesion.

Membranous means that thickening of the glomerular capillary basement membrane is the primary change.

Proliferative means there is an increase in cellularity of the mesangium and membranoproliferative means there is a combination of the two.

Exudative means the glomerulus is filled with infammatory cells, usually neutrophils. This represents a very acute lesion.

GLOMERULOSCLEROSIS means that there is an abnormal increase in mesangial matrix.

What is glomerular amyloidosis?

Notice the glomeruli are enlarged and the architecture is effaced by a homogenous eosinophilic material, this is amyloid.

Glomerular amyloidosis is the depostion of amyloid fibrils in the glomerular basement membrane.

This lesion can cause serious glomerular disfunction and is an important cause of renal failure in dogs.

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