Immunological Mechanisms and Clinical Aspects in Pulmonary-Renal Syndrome: A Review

McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine [1] defines pulmonary-renal syndrome (PRS) as an idiopathic condition characterized by pulmonary hemorrhage, rapid progressive glomerulonephritis, and positive autoantibodies. Pulmonary-renal syndrome may be also defined as a heterogeneous group of multisystem diseases – e.g. Goodpasture syndrome, Wegener's granulomatosis, collagen vascular disease – in particular systemic lupus erythematosus, polyarteritis nodosa, Henoch-Schönlein purpura, and various other conditions, which all have prominent pulmonary and renal components. According to Sanders [2] the strict definition of pulmonary-renal syndrome is the combined clinical picture of rapid progressive glomerulonephritis and pulmonary capillaritis requiring histological confirmation.